We gave Adele last rites in Jungle HASKELL SHOCK AS ITV STARVED’ CELEBS
(Well, he hadn’t seen show in the last 17 years
I’M a Celebrity star James Haskell has told of how he feared Adele Roberts had died one night as ITV bosses “starved them” in the jungle.
The former rugby union player, 34, has accused the show of risking contestants’ health and lying to him about how much food they would get.
James, 34, said he suffered exhaustion, dizziness and hallucinations.
And he claimed campmate Adele Roberts was so run-down by hunger, they called her “the corpse”.
Corpse
The retired England and Wasps star said: “After about 6pm Adele was basically unable to function. She had lost so much weight and had nothing left.
“We called her ‘the corpse’ because instead of singing her goodnight lullabies, we were reading her the last rites.
“One night she was so exhausted she got into a hammock and she was like, ‘I need to have a lay down’.
“I helped her into the hammock – laid her to rest, as it turned out.
“I had to wake her up and I almost had to put a mirror next to her mouth because I was worried she’d stopped breathing.”
James, who is 6ft 4in and usually weighs more than 18 stone, said he lost nearly two stone in 18 days in the jungle He said: “The nutritional and hydration understanding of a lot of people running that show was pretty inadequate.
“The food was the major issue. For the most part of the day we were on 200 calories, which is ridiculous.
“They understood about the water but I was told when I went into that show I would be on 700 calories a day minimum – and then if we won the stars it would top up to maybe 1,500.
“If you look at that for breakfast and for lunch, that’s maybe 400 calories. To operate on 200 calories is terrible.”
James was accused of being “moany” during his time in camp and of “bullying” and “controlling” the other celebrities while suffering bad moods.
Wife Chloe, 32, daughter of TV presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, defended him by saying he was just “hangry” and insisted he was well-liked by his campmates.
James went on: “I was having four spoonfuls of brown rice for breakfast and four spoonfuls, maybe half a cup, of beans. By day nine, the day I had my words, I was unable to walk up and down the stairs.
“I’m one of these people where if I saw a job needed doing I’d go ahead and do it, I wouldn’t ask, I would go down and collect the water and come back up and would honestly have to have a lay down.
“I was so out of breath, so shattered. I was dizzy every time I went to the thing and I was astounded I’d managed to go this far.
“In the evenings there was no caloriedense foods. Crocodiles feet, you got some fat and protein, but not a lot and all the rest was vegetables, so you’re having maximum 800 calories a day, maximum.
“And what people don’t realise is that when you’ve got more muscle it requires more glycogen so you can operate and move around, and then hydration – when you’ve got more muscle, it retains more water.
“I was drinking 15 canned tins of water a day and the nearest person
was drinking five. What did me in was the food, because when you’re used to eating 4,000 calories, down to 200 calories for certain parts of the day, for me to stay the same is 2,400 calories a day.
“That’s just me functioning, just maintaining and living, it’s not me building muscle.
“Within five days I was literally hallucinating. All we talked about was food.
“There is a real interesting issue around nutrition for that show.”
Nutritionist May Simpkin said: “James and Adele are two extremes, in that one is an athlete who is in the gym a lot building muscle, so his daily requirements are massive, and the other does not have much fat there to create the energy needed to cope.
Suffer
“Without the nutrient profile and the calories specifically they’re going to be in trouble and suffer.
“Every person is different and their requirements are different and really, if the producers were on it, they would have to look at each person’s individual nutritional requirements.
“That would actually be the better way of doing it.”
A spokeswoman for ITV said: “We do extensive medical assessments before the show and monitor campmates’ health throughout the series.
“All contestants are briefed in advance on what life in camp involves, including the food they receive.”