{"id":301078,"date":"2025-12-05T21:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/301078\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T21:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:19:11","slug":"not-good-at-making-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/301078\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Not good at making friends&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Martin Kemp has spoken out about his notably low profile during this year&#8217;s I&#8217;m A Celebrity&#8230; Get Me Out of Here!, following his elimination from the ITV programme on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The Spandau Ballet musician and actor, who became the sixth contestant to depart the Australian jungle, acknowledged that he intentionally stepped back to give his younger co-stars greater opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly after his exit, Mr Kemp reflected on his time in camp: &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t one of those guys that was dancing and singing and stuff, I just brought a calm energy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 64-year-old&#8217;s limited screen time had prompted viewers to label him the &#8220;ghost&#8221; of the camp throughout the series.<\/p>\n<p>During an appearance on Good Morning Britain on Friday, Mr Kemp elaborated on his approach to the competition, suggesting his fellow contestants were performing &#8220;magic tricks&#8221; to secure camera time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I suppose my role was to let the kids be kids and bring a little bit of calm into the camp and I knew that was going to be my role, I&#8217;m not one who wants to jump in front of the camera and do magic tricks,&#8221; he told presenters Adil Ray and Charlotte Hawkins.<\/p>\n<p>The former EastEnders star explained his reasoning further, noting that he considered himself at the tail end of his career whilst his campmates were just starting out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And the other guys are at the beginning, and why not give them the chance and time and put them in front of a queue?&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"b71a6\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"4999b4c1dd2c716df57bd804819aff7e\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20902%20548'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764969551_748_martin-kemp.png\" width=\"902\" height=\"548\" alt=\"Martin Kemp\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Martin Kemp addressed why he had taken a back seat in the jungle<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>ITV<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kemp also opened up about the personal challenges of forming friendships after spending more than five decades in the public eye.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I realise that I&#8217;m not very good at making new friends, you know, generally. I think that comes from being in the public eye for getting on over 50 years or something now, I was a 17-year-old kid,&#8221; he admitted.<\/p>\n<p>However, the jungle experience proved transformative in this regard, with Mr Kemp revealing he had managed to forge genuine connections with his campmates for the first time in years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think what you do when you&#8217;re in the public eye, you kind of pull up the drawbridge a little bit,&#8221; he explained.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"478ac\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"3cb437b9d7af9505fedf7f5bc16892ab\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20793%20564'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764969551_160_martin-kemp.png\" width=\"793\" height=\"564\" alt=\"Martin Kemp\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Martin Kemp talked about his notably low profile on the show<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>ITV<\/p>\n<p>His wife Shirlie had apparently encouraged him to participate in the show specifically to help him learn how to make friends again.<\/p>\n<p>The musician&#8217;s son Roman, who presents The One Show, had playfully dubbed his father the &#8220;jungle ghost&#8221; throughout the series due to his minimal appearances on screen.<\/p>\n<p>Roman took to social media to joke about the situation, at one point writing: &#8220;If it wasn&#8217;t for your posts, I&#8217;m not sure I would have realised he was on it,&#8221; quoting a fan&#8217;s response.<\/p>\n<p>Former campmate Vogue Williams added further context following her own elimination.<\/p>\n<p>She claimed during an Instagram live session that Kemp had been exempt from certain Bushtucker trials.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Martin did want to do the trials, but Martin was exempt from some,&#8221; the Irish presenter told fans from her hotel room.<\/p>\n<p>Kemp&#8217;s sole major trial came on Thursday&#8217;s episode alongside Tom Read Wilson, just hours before his departure from the competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Kemp has spoken out about his notably low profile during this year&#8217;s I&#8217;m A Celebrity&#8230; Get Me&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,830,96,6463,347,2331,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-301078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity","tag-entertainment","tag-im-a-celebrity-get-me-out-of-here","tag-itv","tag-sgg","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}