I’m A Celebrity’s Lisa Riley makes heartbreaking admission after jungle exit

Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley has opened up about her darkest moment in the I’m a Celebrity jungle.

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Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley has revealed how her late mother’s memory helped her through her most challenging moments in the Jungle. The usually cheerful star confessed to feeling “alone” and “vulnerable” as she grappled with the realities of camp life.

At her lowest point, the 49-year-old distanced herself from the ITV I’m A Celebrity camp, seeking solitude by the creek. “I sat there on my own, and I had a little word with my mum,” she confessed to the Mirror.

“I spoke to all my angels up there – I’m so blessed – but especially her. I was like, ‘mum, I need some strength. I need to get through. I’m struggling, and I am finding things really hard.’”

Lisa shared an incredibly close bond with her mother Cath, whose passing from cancer in 2012 at the age of 57 left her heartbroken. The Emmerdale star admits she found it difficult to cope following her participation in the fish gut challenge, describing it as the “toughest time” she faced.

When asked to articulate her feelings, she responded: “I felt alone, vulnerable….the challenge probably takes it out of you, and the feeling that you’ve got to do well, you’ve got to provide.” She admitted that the pressure of everyone else performing well in the trials weighed heavily on her.

Lisa opened up on the more challenging aspects of camp life (Image: James Gourley/ITV/Shutterstock)

“We were getting hefty numbers. No one got less than six stars. And I’d done really well. I got a mega number. But then you get back and you don’t know what day it is, what time it is, and you just want that reassurance maybe from home to go, ‘You know what, Lisa, you’re doing b***** brilliant.’”

She reveals that her most challenging moment came after returning to camp following the trial. She explained: “We’d left the camp so quickly that morning, I hadn’t prepared any clean clothes. I had nothing.

“Everything I had was saturated. So I sat there smelling like a wet fish market nine times over and covered in green stuff in the heat. I was sitting on the bottom step of the Telegraph all on my own. I just wanted time out.”

She remembered how co-star Ruby Wax spotted something was up (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)

She mentions that dear friend Ruby Wax spotted her distress, recalling: “Ruby went, ‘baby’s lost her smile,’ and for Ruby to see that… I had no smile in me. I was like, ‘This is really hard. This is really, really hard.’

“And then what I did was I literally took myself down to the furthest part of the creek where they collect wood from. I thought, ‘I just stink’. There was no option B.”

The actress revealed that her campmates supported her during her difficult moments. She added: “In the toughest times, I was always the one to make people feel better. But Martin was there, Jack was there for me, Ruby… the boys, I mean, those lads. I’m old enough to be their mum, right?

“Those boys, I have been there as a sister figure, a mother figure, call it whatever you want, but for the boys to be so instinctive that day especially, and they were like… I could see it around camp, everyone going, ‘Lisa’s low’. My balloon popped.”

Lisa had many happy memories to share (Image: Tim Merry/Reach Plc)

Fortunately, Lisa managed to bounce back, describing her time on the programme as “everything I wanted it to be and so much more.”

She not only found the experience more enjoyable than Strictly, but Lisa also lost 20lbs during her jungle stint, attributing this to “portion control” and physical activity.

“When you’re in there, people don’t have an idea of the lifestyle, the geography of the camp. It’s the do-ability, the activeness,” she explains. “Like, when you go up to the Telegraph to talk, it’s step after step. When you go to a challenge, you never stop moving. It’s endless. It’s not just sat around a campfire having loads of giggles.”

She also discussed her confession in camp that she found Ant McPartlin “juicy”. Lisa chuckled: “Any red-blooded woman would say Ant is juicy, and he looks really well. But I’m in a very, very, very happy relationship, I could not be happier. But you know, as I always say, you can go to Waitrose, you don’t have to buy anything.”

When questioned about any awkward moments upon seeing Ant in camp, she continued: “I wouldn’t say blushes. Listen, I’m a flirt. I flirt with everybody. That’s who I am. I’m not going to stop.

“I’m a flirt, and I’m so secure in my relationship I can flirt with everybody, but I know who I go home to every night and who loves me and who I love.”

She admitted she’s a ‘flirt’ after her cheeky Ant admission (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)

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That gentleman is her long-term fiancé Al, with whom she’s shared 12 years together.

“We know where our bread’s buttered with each other,” she explains. “Al knows fully well what he’s got in me. I’m not shy. I’m very forward-coming. I love a laugh, and I’m a flirt, why not?”

Lisa also earned praise in camp for gently encouraging Jack to share his feelings about his father Ozzy’s passing, whilst opening up herself about losing her mum and her journey with sobriety.

Lisa and Al have been together 12 years (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)

She reflected: “People look at us in the public eye and think it is all champagne and baubles. Don’t get me wrong, it is, but I’m not champagne and baubles.

“I’m fish and chips, and I want to be fish and chips. That’s me, and Jack’s the same. I’m so privileged to have been a part of a show that lets that curtain be pulled down. To think, I go to people who say to me, ‘What do you do in the supermarket?’ I’m doing the b***** shopping like you! And that’s what this show exposes: that I’m fish and chips to a fault and long may that be the case.”