Paul Burrell was reportedly ‘devastated’ after the I’m A Celebrity…South Africa staff allegedly stole his £10,000 wedding ring.
The former royal butler, 64, is returning to the bushtucker trials with Carol Vorderman, Phil Tufnell, and Shaun Ryder for a special all-stars spin-off.
According to reports, Paul, who is married to cooper lawyer Graham Cooper, was told to remove his ring before doing the signature Bushtucker trials and surrendered it to a production team member.
‘Paul was told off-camera and was distraught,’ a source said. Production sent a crew to search the region high and low for the ring.
‘They looked for hours but had to give up when it didn’t come up.’
According to The Sun, the staff member in issue ‘cried’ after losing Paul’s ring, and the singer informed his fellow campmates.
Paul previously informed Metro.co.uk and other press that he’ll be appearing in an I’m A Celeb spin-off for ‘gay guys’ and’married men who don’t realise they’re homosexual yet’.
After parting from his wife of 32 years in 2016, the father-of-two came out as homosexual in 2017.
Paul told us: ‘I did it for 64-year-old men, I did it for gay men, I did it for married men who don’t know they’re gay yet. I did it for all of those people.
‘It was going to be tough. I knew the trials were going to be tougher.’
The TV personality, who finished his cancer radiation treatment earlier this month and credits I’m A Celebrity with’saving his life’ when medical examinations discovered his disease early on, was filming in South Africa when Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of 96.
He had the option of returning home at the moment, but chose to stay.
When asked if he watched the news after returning from South Africa, Paul told Lorraine Kelly on Friday, ‘I did. But you know, whilst I was there in South Africa, the ITV team said, “Do you wanna go home Paul? You can go home if you want to?”
‘I said, “Listen, I’m better here. This is my sanctuary right now. If I go back home, it’ll be a circus and I’ll be sucked into that world. So let me stay here with the other celebrities, and I’ll share my grief with them.” Because it was their Queen too!’
I’m A Celebrity… South Africa starts Monday at 9pm and all week on ITV1 and ITVX.