Nigel Havers has said appearing on reality television show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! was a "terrible error" and revealed he wanted to "murder" his "incredibly irritating" co-star Lembit Opik during their time in the jungle.
The 74-year-old actor, who played conman Lewis Archer in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, joined the 61-year-old former politician in the Australian jungle back in 2010, but quit the series after just nine days.
Reflecting on his short-lived stint, Havers spoke on host Lorraine Kelly's podcast for Saga, titled Experience is Everything, and admitted that he mistakenly agreed to join the show without ever having watched it.
"I’d made a terrible error of agreeing to do a show having not seen it," Havers said of his decision to enter the camp. "It turned out that it was a stupid thing to do."
Frustration in the jungle camp
During his time in the jungle, Havers grew increasingly frustrated with Opik, saying the former Member of Parliament constantly talked "rubbish" in camp.
"The other thing was I wanted to kill someone in the camp," Havers said. "And I got to the stage when I would have killed him."
"I found him incredibly irritating, and there was nowhere to go away from him. I would sleep at night working up ways to kill him," he added.
Havers explained that the presence of television cameras kept him from acting on those thoughts. "And then I thought I’d end up in court on a murder charge, and I couldn’t really say, 'Look, it wasn’t me', because there are 38 cameras on you, so I had to get the hell out of there. To this day, he can’t understand why I hate him."
The actor noted that his experience in camp was not entirely negative, praising Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder for making his stay bearable. "The camp wasn’t all bad. I did like one guy there, Shaun Ryder. I really liked him, so he saved my life for a bit," Havers said.
Quitting the trial
Havers dramatically walked out of I'm A Celebrity hours after complaining to producers about the treatment of contestants.
He finally left camp after objecting to the Kangaroo Court task, which saw camp members given electric shocks if they failed in the special trial.
Objecting to the challenge, Havers was seen fuming: "I'm not up for it, I don’t do electric shocks so I’m leaving. I cannot waste another second of my life. I will probably do something drastic like probably go."
He questioned remaining on the programme, saying: "If you are gaining something, that’s a fantastic thing. But if you’re not gaining something..."
The actor said another reason he decided to quit the show was because he did not want his wife to see him "in prison".
Prior to walking out, Havers had also been complaining about the lack of intelligent conversation between campmates, calling many of the discussion topics "inane".
"There has been non-stop chat, never a pause ever. I'm 59 and I don't want to waste it sitting around talking absolute b******s," he said.
