Our Hollie close to tears as she bows out of I’m A Celebrity
GRIMSBY’S Hollie Arnold became the first contestant to be evicted from the The I’m A Celebrity castle on Friday night.
The paralympian was the first campmate to leave Gwrych Castle after a public vote.
Her departure came after Shane Richie and AJ Pritchard triumphed during a Chamber Of Horrors challenge
The gold medallist Hollie lasted 14 days on the ITV show and was close to tears when she said goodbye to her fellow campmates.
“I’m devastated,” she told Ant and Dec.
“I never really knew what to expect, I thought, ‘just go in there and enjoy every second of it’. It was a crazy experience for me.”
She added: “I was so nervous. I had a feeling it might be me. I am slightly superstitious, when you guys were saying the names. I was thinking, ‘It’s going to be me’.
“But honestly I love everybody in there and I love what their values are and what they mean to me. And I will never ever forget this experience, ever.”
There were emotional words from the campmates on their last night as a ‘family’, with the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire saying that the contestants had all ‘essentially fallen in love with each other.
Following her departure, she revealed her time on the hit ITV show was a gas - because the whole camp kept breaking wind.
She told the Daily Star: “There was farting and snoring. Honestly, all dignity goes out of the window when you’re in the camp.
“Among the girls, we all felt like we were going feral.
“But it was funny. We had little fart gags. It was hilarious.
“Beverley Callard was like, ‘Stop it. Stop being so crude’. I loved that.”
She said she wasn’t bothered by the squalid conditions in the North th Wales camp.
She added: “It wasn’t glamorous. us. The camp was a bit dirty and the he beds were hard. But we got there in the end and we pulled each other er through.
“I already miss being sat around nd the fire with everybody else in our ur layers and laughing, joking, dancing, g, singing. I miss it all.”
Hollie, 26, faced a string of horror or trials during her time on the show. The star was born without a right ht forearm but refused to let her condidition prevent her battling to win in meals for camp. In her toughest st challenge she had to carry a bucket of water in a tunnel.
She said: “That trial was hard, but I loved doing it. I got stuck in and did what I could.
“My competitive side came out. It did me the world of good to challenge myself and be out of my comfort zone.
“After doing this show, I feel like I’m more me. I feel comfortable in my own skin.
“I feel like I’ve gained so much more confidence, like I’ve got more resilience than I realised.
“It’s the best thing I could have ever done.”
Hollie thinks her experience on I I’m A Celebrity will boost her c chances at the Paralympics, due to g go ahead in Tokyo next summer. She said: “I’ve still got hunger. I wwt want to break the world record and t take that gold medal home.”