Craig Charles told his campmates about a scary incident which saw him needing an ambulance and surgery
21:27, 08 Apr 2026Updated 22:03, 08 Apr 2026
Craig Charles opened up about his family tragedy on I’m A Celeb(Image: ITV)
Craig Charles has told how he could have died after he suffered a heart attack similar to the one which killed his brother. Actor and DJ Charles, has returned to I’m A Celebrity for a second time, having quit the show in 2014 just days into his Aussie adventure when his brother Dean passed away.
Speaking in camp as talk turned to medication when he had a headache, Charles told his fellow celebrities he was on “so much medication” each day he could not remember all the names. He explained: “I’m on about eight tablets a day. I’ve got four stents in my heart.
“The arteries from my heart were narrow. It’s the same thing that killed my brother when I was here last time. They told me this is genetic, you need to go get that looked at.
Craig Charles spoke about his late brother on I’m A Celeb South Africa
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“And then my wife, Jackie, is in Galway, visiting their parents, and I’m at home. I gave her a ring, something like that ‘I don’t feel great, man. My jaws are tingling’.
“Anyway, her sister in law’s a nurse and said to call for an ambulance, so I didn’t, because you don’t call the ambulance on your own. And she was coming home in the morning, so she came home the next morning and took one look at me and got on the phone, and the woman said, ‘We think he’s having a heart attack, and stay with me’.
“She asked ‘what colour is he?’ And she [wife] said ‘he’s brown’. So by now I am having a heart attack and laughing my socks off.
“And then they put a wire in, which is attached to a balloon, and then they blow the balloon up, then they stick a stent in, and it goes all the way up there into your heart, so it widens the artery. Because apparently I was existing only 35% blood to my heart, and when they put the stents in and it’s on 100%. So they saved me.
Craig did a challenge against Gemma Collins on tonight’s sho(Image: ITV)
“My brother had the same thing, but he passed out, he was working at a school as a teacher.”
Fellow campmate Scarlett Moffat was full of praise for her new friend. She said in Bush Telegraph: “I think Craig is really, really brave coming back somewhere where you found out the most devastating news must be really hard.”
Before heading into the show a second time earlier this week, Charles said he hoped to make his later brother proud this time around.
He said: “The death of my brother, Dean, changed my life the last time I was on I’m A Celebrity. I was 50 at the time, my brother was 52, I had been in Corrie for ten years and I came in to do the jungle, then Dean passed away.
“It made me re-evaluate things. I just thought if that had happened to me, would I be happy with what I’d achieved? I came up with the answer and it was ‘no’. I had been in Corrie for ten years and I felt in a rut. I was really enjoying my time in the Australian jungle and it got sadly cut short. I knew I wanted to have some new adventures after that.“But since I left, there have been years of ‘What ifs?’ It’s nice to put that to bed.”
Corrie legend Craig Charles opened up on I’m A Celeb tonight(Image: ITV)
He added: added: “I found out when I got back for the funeral that after the first episode, he turned to his wife and said: ‘he is going to win that’. But sadly, Dean never woke up and so hopefully I will make him proud.”
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