The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Celebrity tells how she quit jungle when blood test revealed anaemia
Olivia Attwood was forced to withdraw from I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! after a routine blood test showed she was anaemic.
The test, which all the contestants undergo randomly throughout the show, also revealed low sodium and potassium levels, prompting staff to immediately take her to hospital.
The former Love Island contestant, 31, disclosed the reason for her departure after only 24 hours in the Australian jungle in an interview with the Mail On Sunday. She said: “I was like: ‘What the hell is wrong with me?’
“They couldn’t give me an answer, they just told me that they had to get me to the hospital immediately.
“The results were really, really low when they put them into their reader and they consulted with another doctor off-site.”
Attwood said that when the tests were repeated in hospital, they came back normal.
She said: “If I went back into camp, they feared my levels might drop and it could be detrimental to my health and wellbeing.”
She said ITV was not “willing to authorise my return and therefore I wasn’t insured”.
Attwood also said she was not aware former health minister Matt Hancock was joining the show until she turned her phone on at Brisbane Airport on her way home.
She said: “It’s funny to see him slimed and gunked but it isn’t funny if you didn’t get to hold someone’s hand when they died while he was snogging someone in his office.
“NHS workers are protesting to get paid enough money to survive and he is out earning money in the jungle.”