EXCLUSIVE: ‘I was on Stephen Mulhern’s Deal or No Deal and one moment made me feel physically sick’

The Deal or No Deal contestant said that although her time on the ITV show with Stephen Mulhern was an experience of a lifetime, she is ready to “close that chapter”

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Helen McPherson said Stephen Mulhern was ‘the ultimate professional’(Image: ITV)

A Deal or No Deal player has revealed she felt “physically unwell” following her appearance on the ITV programme. Helen McPherson, who secured an impressive £19,000 during a tense game aired in January, endured a 14-month wait before her episode was televised.

In the lead-up to the broadcast, Helen confessed that viewing other contestants’ rounds triggered the same overwhelming feelings she’d experienced in the studio.

“The funny thing is, watching it back now, I’m literally like chewing chunks out of my hand,” she admitted. “My husband is like, ‘Hels, you were there, you know what happened’.

“But, you forget so much of it and I feel the emotions as intensely as I did when I was there.

“And when I came back, I was physically unwell from the adrenaline crash and then I was okay again and now it’s the reliving it all,” reports the Express.

“My cortisol levels are up here every time I watch someone else’s game,” she jokingly added on her TikTok page.

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Deal or No Deal contestant Helen McPherson won £19,000 on the show(Image: INSTAGRAM/HELENMCPHERSON)

“Even though I was there and know how it went, there’s so much of it that I don’t remember.”

Speaking to The Mirror, Helen described how one specific episode left her “feet tingling”.

“I felt like I was going to throw up, I was like, ‘You’re going to have to turn it off babe I cannot watch’,” she explained.

During filming, which spanned several weeks, the mum-of-two worked as a self-employed hairdresser and sacrificed income to participate.

While this wasn’t the best position to be in at the time, Helen’s winnings made it all worthwhile, with the contestant calling her appearance “an experience of a lifetime”.

Before her game unfolded, she told presenter Stephen Mulhern that she planned to spend any prize money on a new car and memorable trips with loved ones.

The sizable winnings have since helped Helen pursue content creation full-time, building a thriving TikTok with more than 100,000 followers.

Although deeply appreciative of the opportunity, the contestant admitted she may need to take a step back from watching the programme after being invested for so long.

She said: “The people I knew from when I was there, as soon as they started appearing I started watching it.

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Stephen Mulhern hosts ITV’s Deal or No Deal(Image: ITV)

“And then I feel like once the last person I knew in real life has played theirs, I’m going to have to stop watching for a bit and just sort of like close that chapter because it has sort of consumed a lot of my head space.”

She added, laughing: “It’s time to move on, I don’t want to be defined for the rest of my life like ‘that one time on Deal or No Deal’.”

Helen, a long-time admirer of Stephen, also reflected on meeting the host during filming.

“I said a lot of stupid things,” she recalled. “Towards the end, I do remember digging my fingernails into his arm so hard, it was like I was giving birth and he was like my husband. It was bonkers.”

Describing Stephen as “the ultimate professional”, Helen went on to say: “I didn’t expect him to be so kind and generous with his time.

“Like, he would make an effort to talk to us all and he remembered details that I told him about my son, like what a big fan he was of him.”

She continued: “He would just remember stuff and I just thought, b****y hell. Like, you don’t have to do that.

“I thought he’d just be whisked in at the last minute, do it and then go but actually [he wasn’t].”