Nick sells his Jungle pants for £2k to pay for boy’s op
RED “budgie smugglers” worn by Nick Knowles have been sold for £2,250 to help pay for a teenager’s life-changing operation.
The TV presenter wore the tightfitting trunks on I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in December.
On Saturday he co-hosted a fundraising auction in Pewsey, Wiltshire, for Luca Railton, 15, from Bath, who was born without lower leg bones and needs £120,000 for an operation.
The trunks initially sold for £1,250 but the new owner then returned them so they were auctioned again – this time for another £1,000.
The second buyer – Mark Lamputt, 37, owner of Space Gym in Bath – said he bought the item to inspire a “red pants run” for charity. He also said Luca’s mum, Theresa, uses his gym and he wanted to support her.
Mark said: “It’s for a fantastic cause but I know them on a personal level too, they’re my next door neighbours.
“We had a eureka moment 10 minutes before the auction.
Brilliant
“We thought it would be a funny thing to bid for but someone said, ‘Why don’t you run in them?’
“We thought that would be good, but what if we got 200 people to run in red pants – that would be an incredible spectacle.
“We intend to get people from the gym to enter public races, all wearing red pants. We’ll put them up in the gym on display, where everyone can see them.
“Nobody really knows we bought them yet but I’m sure as the days go on we’ll get some funny comments.
“We’ve already had one – someone asked if I was going to sniff them.
“I can’t believe how big they are, they’re massive. I think they were washed before the sale.”
Luca’s mother, who recently moved to Bath with her son from Swindon, said of the auction: “It was amazing – just brilliant.
“Everyone is buzzing, you just want it to be perfect. Luca loved it and thanked everyone for coming.”
She added that BBC DIY SOS host Nick would also support the charity “red pants” runs. He wore the eyecatching underwear in the I’m A Celebrity jungle camp, in which he survived for 20 days.
Luca has the condition bilateral tibial hemimelia, which affects one in three million people.
He has already undergone several operations, after being born without a tibia and a knee on his right leg, and just a partial tibia on his left leg.
His family have so far raised about £10,000 for further surgery in the United States.