Anne: Jungle changed my life
ANNE Hegerty says her experience on I’m A Celebrity will be “lifechanging”, revealing she had lost a stone in weight on the show.
The Chase star added that she hopes the diet of rice and beans and forced exercise around camp may kick-start a better fitness regime.
The 60-year-old said: “I’ve lost about a stone. I’ll probably put it all back on again but people have been saying to me recently, ‘You’re going up the steps faster’. There’s so many steps in that camp and people have been saying, ‘You’re going up the steps quicker than you were’.”
Anne, who has spoken openly about her Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, added: “I think it [the show] may have been a life-changing experience. I expected I would need a lot of alone time to get away from them, but I didn’t.
“It is just incredible that everyone was so lovely.”
Anne tried to quit the jungle after less than 24 hours, but was persuaded to stay by bosses and her campmates.
Explaining just how bad things got, she said: “Autistic people have a thing called executive dysfunction, which is where you have to think your way through things – and it can take ages. I can be very slow at doing things. Basically the turning point boils down to them being lovely, lovely campmates.
“They could see I was distressed – everyone was coming over and giving me a hug. They said, ‘Don’t worry about anything Anne – we will make the dinner’.”
Anne hopes Nick Knowles will win but said she knew the bookmakers’ favourite was Harry Redknapp. But she admitted it was a relief for her to be finally out, having expected to be evicted earlier.
She said: “It’s so lovely to have had a hot shower with my own toiletries and wear something that hasn’t been washed in the creek.
“The issues for me were the physical discomfort and the hunger – I’m not designed for the outdoor life.”