Katherine Ryan has explained why she declined the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! reality show. and why she’s skipping it this year, which has something to do with Matt Hancock and Nigel Farage.
Jamie Lynn Spears, who left the jungle just days after Grace Dent, is the second celebrity to leave the programme.
Britney Spears‘ younger sister departed the show “on medical grounds,” while MasterChef star Grace previously issued a statement expressing her heartbreak.
Former Ukip leader Farage, 59, is still in the reality show, with Sam Thompson and This Morning’s Josie Gibson.
And, despite the fact that Farage is rumoured to be the highest-paid competitor ever, Katherine has echoed the sentiments of many fans who have pledged to boycott the programme.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk about why she has yet to take on Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly’s bushtucker trials, the 40-year-old comedian said: ‘They’ve checked my availability in the past maybe, but I’ve always had small children and I wouldn’t be away from them in Australia for 30 days, I just wouldn’t.
‘I’ve seen that show do wonderful things for my friends Vicky Pattinson and Joel Dommett, we really got to see his personality on I’m A Celebrity and I think comedians are great because they have nothing to hide, we’re very candid anyway so you could film us 24 hours a day and I think it’s fine.
‘But I don’t do well with sun, and I don’t think I’d like to eat crazy things and be scared, and I don’t like snakes or spiders.’
She jokingly added: ‘I’m the worst candidate to really be on that show, so I keep having children to make sure I’m not available!’
Talking about the show hosting the likes of Farage and Hancock, Katherine told us: ‘I vehemently am against glorifying people like Matt Hancock and Nigel Farage and reducing them to light entertainment fodder when I think that they’re very dangerous people who have directly hurt lots of families.
‘I don’t think that’s a joke, for me, so I wouldn’t be watching. I didn’t watch last year. I take politics quite seriously.’
She elsewhere joked about the other shows she’s refused, despite ‘infamously turning very little down’.
‘I love to have this job and I feel very grateful to be able to make people laugh for a living especially when times are very dark, I think if it’s funny then I definitely want to do it,’ she said.
‘They have sort of inquired about Strictly before, not a direct offer, but again, that just takes so much rehearsal time and I haven’t been married long enough to have an affair!’
Talking about the ‘dark times’, Katherine also revealed she’s removed herself entirely from X, formerly known as Twitter, explaining: ‘Well, I don’t have the app X anymore at all, because I felt like the algorithms took on a sinister twist where it was learning about me and showing me a lot of violence and a lot of specifically female-targeted distressing stuff.
‘There’s a point in advocacy where you can be aware and you can be informed, but you need to know the boundary for when you’re being needlessly distressed by social media, and I’m very lucky that I’m not a 16 year old girl – I’m 40 years old, I can easily delete an app, I know the difference between what’s real and what’s not.
‘I have felt very dejected about the fact that I used to think that I could make a difference. I would think that if I posted something or reposted something that it would give a voice to people who might otherwise be voiceless, and now there have been so many terrible things in the news cycle that I’m at a place where I’m just feeling a little bit let down and I just don’t know if what I post on social media really has any political impact. So that’s been hard.
‘In my comedy, I try to keep it light, I just try to post about the little simple joys in my life like food and my family and I try to show gratitude, but yeah, I think social media has taken a bit of a bit of a dark twist in some respects, so I don’t engage with a lot of that stuff like I used to.’
Katherine has instead spent more time with husband Bobby Kootstra binge-watching famous documentaries, such as David Beckham’s Netflix series and Coleen Rooney’s Disney+ series on The Wagatha Christie trial, before their own programme premieres next year.
She went on to talk about what she is viewing this season, stressing that Die Hard would be on the list as a Christmas movie, while supporting NOW with the debut of their limited-edition baubles box set this Christmas.
She went on: ‘The family are getting bigger all the time, so my teenage daughter Violet is 14, she loves Elf, but the little ones are around the age, my son Fred is two and I think he’ll understand Christmas and I’d love to see him enjoy Elf the way that Violet used to.
‘And then there are romcoms on there like The Holiday, I like Polar Express. My husband has never seen Love Actually and now that he is a resident of the UK we absolutely have to get into that one.
‘And then there’s a lot of time and cold weather to cuddle up and watch stuff, like The White Lotus I absolutely loved, I can’t wait for season three but I’ll watch one and two over again, I can never get enough of Succession, I mean, I could go on and on.’
Streaming service NOW – with the help of comedian Katherine Ryan – is giving away limited-edition Box Set Baubles inspired by iconic TV shows to help Brits inject even more of their passions and interests into their Christmas tree this festive period
The NOW Box Set Baubles draw inspiration from its most iconic Box Sets – including Succession, The White Lotus, House of the Dragon, And Just Like That, The Last of Us and True Detective: Night Country – and are available on a first come, first serve basis here.
I’m A Celebrity continues tonight at 9pm on ITV.
