Ant and Dec discuss I’m A Celebrity final calling it ‘a weird night of TV’

By Casey Cooper-Fiske, Press Association Senior Entertainment Reporter

I’m A Celebrity… South Africa presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly have discussed the show’s controversial final, with the former describing it as “a weird night of TV”.

During last week’s live final of the ITV reality show, actor Adam Thomas was crowned the I’m A Celebrity legend, but during the chaotic episode, he was accused of being “abusive, aggressive and intimidating” by former footballer Jimmy Bullard.

Former boxer David Haye accused the show of editing footage to make Thomas look like a “victim” and, after defending the actor, singer Sinitta and reality TV star Gemma Collins walked off set.

In a preview for their podcast, Hanging Out With Ant And Dec, McPartlin said: “If you didn’t see it on Friday, I bet you read about it.

“There was walk outs, it was a weird night of TV…

“(There were) two people in the car park, David Haye and Jimmy Bullard, and I thought ‘oh god, how’s your luck?’.”

Donnelly added: “It was quite the night, the first question was to Jimmy about why did you call, ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’?

“On the night I disagreed with it, he said he had a bit of a bee in his bonnet, and he wanted to get that off his chest.

“And we’d heard that Gemma and Adam had left the WhatsApp group.”

It comes after Thomas claimed on his At Home With The Thomas Bros podcast yesterday that he was bullied on the show, where he said he regrets not standing up for himself and brushing it off as “banter”.

He said: “I feel like there’s a fine line between banter and bullying.

“I didn’t want to point the finger… I didn’t want to call anyone a bully, right?

“But I’ll just be outright and just say it how it is now: what happened to me in camp is bullying.

“I don’t think it’s fair to people who are going through what I went through in the real world to pass it off as banter, because it’s not.”