Joe Swash is having a far more difficult time on I’m A Celebrity South Africa than he did previously.
During Monday night’s episode, the former EastEnders star burst into tears and had to be consoled by fellow campmates Myleene Klass and Jordan Banjo.
Joe, 41, told them how much he missed his children and his wife, Stacey Solomon, and how both fellow parents could completely understand how he felt.
The I’m A Celeb winner has a 15-year-old son Harry from a previous relationship, as well kids Rex, three, Rose, one, and baby Belle with Stacey.
Joe is a stepfather to Zachary, 15, and Leighton, 11, as part of a lovely mixed family.
‘You know what, it’s not the eating now, it’s I’m really starting to miss my kids,’ Joe told Myleene and Jordan following days of basic rice and beans.
‘I just have to speak to my kids,’ he said.
Jordan was right there with the sympathy, as he is also a dad: ‘I feel you, mate.’
‘In order to survive the jungle, you have to be quite one-track-minded about it all, because otherwise your head just spins out of control and there’s nowhere it can go,’ Myleene then said in the Bush Telegraph.
‘You haven’t got any control about what’s going on at home, you just have to trust that everything’s ok.’
‘I’m fine, I’m alright,’ Joe assured his fellow stars, as he noted to Myleene that she had been through it too.
‘Joe, I spent all morning feeling it,’ she told him.
‘I don’t know how to get rid of the feeling,’ Joe confessed.
When he was alone with the cameras, the former King of the Jungle broke down.
‘I am finding this a lot harder than I did the first time around,’ he admitted.
‘I was a different person, the first time, this time around there’s so much at home waiting for me.
‘Everyone wants to do their family proud and I’m the same.’
Joe acknowledged his attitude was out of character after a fight with Janice Dickinson.
He then said: ‘If I weren’t so hungry and I weren’t so tired and missing my family… maybe I’m a little more sensitive.’
But, fortunately, Myleene was on hand with the motivational speech.
‘You’ve got a beautiful family, a beautiful wife, an incredible career, you’re a lucky man and you’ve worked hard for it,’ she told him.
‘It’s wonderful to see you acknowledge that.’
I’m A Celebrity South Africa continues tomorrow on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm.
