Australian TV legend Kerri-Anne Kennerley is the most recent star to be introduced as a contestant on this season of I’m A Celeb, in a giant ‘get’ for the present that was eight years within the making.
Network Ten’s head of leisure Stephen Tate had requested Kennerley to look on the present each season because the present’s inception, leaving her in an enviable place when she did ultimately say sure.
I sat down with Kennerley in South Africa the day earlier than she was as a result of begin filming, and she or he confirmed she accepted a suggestion she “couldn’t refuse” for her look – in addition to “a few provisos.”
Such as?
“I get to take makeup,” she reveals. “Natural is very overrated.”
Don’t count on full hair and make-up, although: “I can’t be bothered doing that much, but it won’t be natural because natural takes a long time. Every girl knows that.”
Kennerley will enter the jungle the day after the remainder of the forged, making her debut on Monday’s episode. Asked if she’s apprehensive her fellow contestants will really feel jealous about her being allowed this one creature consolation, she shrugs.
“They should just get better management. Not my problem,” she says with a smile.
The contract stipulation is a small allowance to Kennerley’s public picture: In her greater than 40 years on Australian tv, she’s by no means been something lower than glamorous.
But she scoffs on the suggestion she’s too pampered to deal with the camp’s lengthy drop bogs, out of doors showers and intense challenges. Rather, she factors out her years as a daytime TV host – the place the calls for to fill hours of airtime necessitate all method of zany stunts – have been good coaching for a stint on I’m A Celeb.
“I literally have ridden camels, bulls, horses … held snakes including cobras and red-bellied blacks … been bitten by a ferret, been scratched by a lion cub,” she says breezily.
And how about heights? Any points there?
“I’ve abseiled out of a few choppers. Flying-foxed off the top of (television station) GTV in Melbourne … did that a couple of times.”
Kerri-Anne Kennerley: I’m A Celeb problem beast?
The present will mark Kennerley’s TV return after a comparatively quiet few years away from screens. She says she doesn’t miss the “five, six-day routine” of daytime TV, and insists she’ll by no means return to screens in that capability.
Part of the rationale for her slowdown: Several well being points that required prolonged recuperation time. First, her starring position within the musical Pippin got here to an abrupt finish when she suffered a brutal onstage accident, breaking her collarbone in entrance of a horrified dwell viewers whereas performing a dangerous trapeze stunt.
“I trained so hard to do that, and it was going really, really well until I dropped on my head. Now I’ve got a 12-centimetre plate in my collarbone,” she tells me.
Then got here two knee replacements. Kennerley traces the lengthy scars throughout each of her legs as she particulars the grisly procedures.
“They hacksaw under your knee, hacksaw the bone off your thigh, cut through all the ligaments and the muscle, then put a new one in, bang and crash it and glue it in and then sew you back up,” she says.
Her physician isn’t precisely thrilled that her restoration features a stint on I’m A Celeb, contemplating her new knees – each fitted final 12 months – are “still setting.”
Before that, got here her surprisingly controversial stint as a daily panellist on Studio 10. She appeared on the present for 2 years, earlier than she was let go in a 2020 shake-up of Ten’s on-air expertise.
Her departure got here after a string of minor scandals, as Kennerley bought into fiery clashes along with her fellow panellists on points like Australia Day and local weather change protesters.
Her public picture took a battering, however Kennerley insists she’s bought no regrets and appears again at her time on the present “with great pride.”
“I think probably it surprised people, because the previous 30 years of television career for me was an interview-based show, but it wasn’t about my opinion,” she says.
“I stepped into a new show that was, the way I understood it, unashamedly about the news and current affairs of the day. As a normal Australian citizen and woman, I actually have opinions, and if people ask me, I’m liable to tell them.”
And all these destructive headlines?
“I think it was very good for the show … I thought it worked out really well.”
With the potential for a number of weeks at camp if she makes it to the tip, we might get some extra of Kerri-Anne’s sturdy opinions within the coming weeks.
But she insists she hasn’t actually considered what she’ll discuss on the present – nor how far she would possibly get within the competitors.
“My entire career has been spent going, “Okay, I’ve got this job at the moment, let me try and keep it,’” she says of her lack of planning.
“Try and keep this job for as long as you possibly can, and then when that finishes, you go and get another job and you do everything you can to keep it.”
TV decide Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson and MAFS star Domenica are among the many different celebs who’ll be part of Kennerley within the jungle this season, with extra to be revealed throughout tonight’s premiere.
I’m A Celeb premieres 7:30pm tonight on Ten, with Kerri-Anne coming into the jungle throughout Monday’s episode.
Nick Bond travelled to South Africa as a visitor of Ten.
Originally printed as Kerri-Anne Kennerley reveals her secret I’m A Celeb contract clause
Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au
