Ant McPartlin was forced to break his silence on his bitter fallout with Kelly Brook on the I’m A Celebrity after show after he accidentally made a dig at her by calling the cooking ‘rancid’.
Kelly, 45, is thought to have been at loggerheads with Ant and his longtime hosting partner, Declan Donnelly, both 50, since she accused them of getting her fired from her role as judge on Britain’s Got Talent.
Ant appeared on I’m A Celebrity Unpacked last night to discuss the night’s episodes with hosts Joel Dommett and Kemi Rogers.
He made the point that the celebs were particularly bad at cooking this year and said: ‘What they’ve got given hasn’t been awful, has it? Even octopus, if you cook it right, it’s nice. They just cooked it badly.
‘Every dinner they’ve made I’ve thought “That looks rancid”.
Kemi, 30, pointed out that the comment would be aimed at Kelly and Martin Kemp, who are currently the camp cooks.
Dec then turned to Ant and pointedly said: ‘What’s your problem with Kelly Brook?’
Exasperated, Ant said: ‘Don’t you start! I don’t have a problem with Kelly Brook, thank you.’
In their 2010 autobiography, Dec was candid about the feud – insisting he could not understand why she had been recruited on to BGT.
Kelly joined the third series of Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 as the first ever fourth judge alongside Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan – however, she was axed after just one week when the format was deemed ‘too complicated’.
Despite the explanation, Kelly insisted Ant and Dec were behind the departure due to an awkward exchange. Dec wrote in his memoir, Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story: ‘Kelly looked nervous, so I told her it was going to be great fun and to just relax…
‘She nodded, then looked at me and said, “And what do you do on the show?” I looked at Simon, who was sitting next to me. He turned to Kelly and said, “Kelly, you have seen the show, haven’t you?” To which she replied, “Yeah… well, bits”.’
‘I don’t want to sound like an egomaniac, but the last person who said, “And what do you do?” was the Queen when I met her at the party for ITV’s fiftieth anniversary.’
Kelly soon hit back saying: ‘There was nothing I could do in this country after Britain’s Got Talent. The people at ITV were telling me that I had upset Ant and Dec and that was it. I would love to have stayed on the show…
‘I really felt it was working out. Ant and Dec had never been anything but pleasant to my face but, clearly, they didn’t want me on the show.
‘Their egos are such that they were saying to themselves “How dare she think she can come on to our show?”, and since then they’ve been very vocal about their displeasure at me being there.’
Further on in their book, the duo confessed they were ‘annoyed’ they hadn’t been consulted about Kelly joining the show. Dec wrote: ‘We had two questions: “Why is there a fourth judge?” and “Why is it Kelly Brook?” None of them could answer us…
‘Obviously, as hosts of the show, we have to justify that kind of thing to the audience, and no one could give us a good reason why Kelly was on board.
‘The simple answer was that Simon, without talking to anyone, had decided it was a good idea. We didn’t agree.’
She also took a swipe at the duo for writing about her in their book, writing: ‘As for Ant and Dec, good luck to them. They are rich and they are happy, but they won’t be in my autobiography, even if I am in theirs!’
