'The food is vile - but I'd love to return to camp'

Singer Russell Watson opens up about what he found hardest during his time on I'm A Celebrity, plus living in the country and touring non-stop

- SERENA LACEY-BROWN

It's been three years since I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here moved from the Australian jungle to a freezing cold castle in north Wales because of the pandemic.

One of the stand-out moments from that series was classical singer Russell Watson moving his fellow campmates, including Giovanna Fletcher, Beverley Callard and Victoria Derbyshire, to tears with his rendition of Nessun Dorma.

And when we catch up with Russell who was the fifth celeb to leave the show - he remembers his time in the castle with fond memories and is looking forward to watching this series as a viewer.

"I look back on my time in the castle with a great deal of affection, I really did love it," he says. "There were elements of it that I didn't enjoy, but even with the trials that I did, I still enjoyed it. I had a great time."

"My wife and I love the show, so we'll definitely be watching this year," the 56-year-old tells OK!.

Russell grew close to his campmates, who also included Vernon Kay and Shane Richie, and he still keeps in touch with all of them to this day.

"We have a WhatsApp group and we were all on it recently, congratulating Vernon for having the most successful radio show in the UK," he shares. "We were all writing 'Well done, mate' and 'Congratulations'. They're a great group of people."

During his experience, the singer lost nearly 2st in weight and said the hunger and cold weather were particularly difficult to navigate.

"Most mornings, I would wake up and use my fingers to make a little face in the ice on the windows so I could see out it was that cold.

"By far, the most difficult aspect of the show is the starvation. I lost 2016 in just over two weeks that's a lot of weight. All you can think about when you're hungry is food. It can make you feel quite grumpy and quite tired.