Zara’s law of the jungle
Don’t embarrass me, Mike ... and stop making all that noise when you’re eating!
LIVING on unmentionable animal parts and facing hair-raising bushtucker trials is daunting enough.
But Mike Tindall has the added worry of trying not to embarrass his royal wife while his jungle antics are broadcast to millions.
The former England rugby ace, 44, has been warned by Zara Phillips to keep his uncouth table habits in check or away from the cameras.
Tindall will become the first member of the Royal Family to compete in I’m A Celebrity, Get Me out of Here, which kicks off on Sunday, with Zara – Princess Anne’s daughter – hoping to fly out to greet him when his camp time is up.
‘We have some work out here so if it got to the end then hopefully, she’d be able to come out,’ he said. ‘Zara told me to go and be myself, which is all you can be. She said to go, enjoy, and be yourself. Zara’s biggest worry is how loud I am when I eat. She will be very happy if someone
‘She told me to enjoy it and be myself’
comments about how loud I breathe when I eat because it’s always a point that she brings up.’
It is no surprise that Zara has warned her husband to be on his best behaviour.
He was pictured in a dwarf-throwing club and on camera with a girl on a drink-fuelled night out during the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand after England beat Argentina.
Tindall, who has three children with the Olympic equestrian star whom he married that year, has fond memories of Australia. He was part of England’s victorious World Cup-winning squad who beat the Wallabies on their home turf in 2003 in the final.
And in the same month, he met Zara for the first time in a Sydney bar during the tournament.
Tindall has such a fondness for Australia he turned down appearing on the ITV reality show while it was filmed in Wales during Covid, preferring to wait until it returned to its traditional home Down Under. And he asked former England teammate and ex-I’m A Celebrity star James Haskell for advice before signing up. He explained: ‘ They asked me while it was in Wales but Wales wasn’t that appealing to me. We come to Australia quite a bit...
‘ Obviously I chatted to Hask about it, and he thought I’d have quite a bit of fun doing it and then we have other commitments over here not long after, so it all fitted together well to make it worthwhile doing it.
‘What I expect from it I’m not entirely sure but hopefully if we have a good bunch of people in camp it’ll be fun. Hask said he had quite a bit of fun with it so I’m looking forward to it.’ The MBE holder said he has ‘no phobias’ and believes he will make a good campmate.
He admitted his children, daughters Mia, eight, and Lena, four, plus son Lucas, one, are too young to stay up to watch him in the jungle, but Zara will hopefully ensure they catch up in the mornings.
He added: ‘Zara gets it and supports it – with both our careers, she goes away competing for weeks at a time and I always went on tours for three to four weeks in the summer.’
I’m A Celebrity starts tomorrow night at 9pm on ITV.