There was a lot of turmoil on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! camp when Fred Sirieix accidently angered his fellow campmate Nella Rose.
The French maitre d’hotel has already fought with politician Nigel Farage, criticising the former Ukip leader’s’shameful’ anti-immigration billboard during the Brexit campaign.
And on Tuesday, Fred recognised he’d hurt YouTuber Nella by joking that he may be her father.
While Fred said he was referring to their ages – he is 51 and she is 26 – Nella, who lost both her parents at an early age, was deeply affected by the remark.
She revealed in the Bush telegraph that Fred cracked the joke after she told him about her father’s death.
‘I didn’t say anything about it last night because I was kind of just annoyed about it. So I slept on it … and I was just like, this is not the kind of person I want to be around.’
Fred didn’t notice the gaffe until the next morning, when he continued calling to her and asking if she needed breakfast, and she continuously ignored him until she begged him to ‘leave me alone.’
Bewildered, the First Dates star asked what he’d done wrong, with Nella hitting out: ‘You know that my mum’s dead, and you know that my dad’s dead. You know that, right? I’ve come to find out that every time I wanna get creative around the fire, or I want to have something my way, my own food that I am entitled to, my way, you tend to get an attitude, right?’
She said he had an ‘attitude’ about the fact he told her, ‘You know I could be your dad, right?’
‘I don’t care how you said it to me, it’s disrespectful and I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to be around you,’ Nella said. ‘I only allow people to disrespect me once. You hurt my feelings. I was very upset… you keep trying to speak to me when I don’t want to speak to you.
‘I would rather stay away from you, I don’t want to eat your food, I don’t want to talk to you. We can just live, you live on that side, I live on this side.’
Fred apologised profusely, insisting he didn’t know he offended her with the comment and ‘only said that because I am older than you, I am 51 and you’re 26.’
He added: ‘I made a mistake and I said something and I offended you, I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry you feel like this.’
Nella was having none of it, saying ‘you’re not going to little girl me.’
She said she would accept his apology but ‘I don’t want to eat no food that you’re cooking, don’t talk to me, you stay over there, I stay over here and we can live.’
The influencer’s father died in 2020, with Nella sharing a photograph of them together to announce the news, writing ‘watching you suffer for the past month has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life but at least you’re not in pain anymore 🕊 💛
‘Gonna make you the proudest dad ever in the years to come because I know you’re still by [my] side every step of the way.’
Nella has been through a lot in her life, including being homeless six years ago when her mother died abruptly in 2017.
In a YouTube video on her past, the star said: ‘She died in my arms. It is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life.
‘I was planning on using my student loan and my little YouTube money to pay the rent and bills. But then my brother and I got a letter telling us we had 30 days to move out. So I’m in my second year of uni, I’m dealing with my mum’s death and now we’re homeless.’
She had come to the UK from Belgium with her mother and brother when she was seven years old.
I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! returns to ITV at 9pm on Wednesday.
