Premier League Star Was Booted Out Of I'm A Celeb Amid Bullying Accusations
A former Premier League cult hero was once the first to be voted out of I'm A Celebrity amid accusations that he was 'bullying' another campmate.
The current series of the popular ITV reality show has seen the likes of Angry Ginge, Alex Scott, Kelly Brook and Jack Osbourne all enter the Australian jungle.
Two late arrivals - which The Sun are reporting as being television presenters Tom Read Wilson and Vogue Williams - are set to enter camp imminently.
The first vote-off normally takes place 14 days after the show gets underway, with each campmate given plenty of time to acclimatise to their new surroundings before potentially travelling back to an Australian hotel.
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The 2014 edition of the show was won by former World Superbikes rider Carl Fogarty, who topped the public vote in seven of the eight vote-offs.
He struck up an early friendship with former Wigan and Hull midfielder Jimmy Bullard, who had only retired from professional football two years earlier.
It was something of a surprise when Bullard, who had originally been tipped as one of the favourites to win the entire show, was voted out of the camp first.
The former midfielder wasn't the first to leave camp, as Craig Charles and Gemma Collins had both previously withdrawn.
Bullard had developed what the media described as a 'bromance' with singer Jake Quickenden, who was himself a footballer at non-league level.
But some viewers accused Bullard of bullying Quickenden after he said to him: "The more I'm getting to know you, the more I'm thinking, what the f**k is this **** doing in here? What's he offering?
"Why the f*** is he in here? What are you? What sort of skill have you got? Picking up a mic?"
Speaking to presenters Ant and Dec after exiting the show, Bullard said his remarks were simply 'banter', and that both he and Quickenden saw them as a joke.
He added: "Me and Jake and Foggy, I can go that deep. I couldn't go as deep on Michael [Buerk, journalist and TV presenter who was also in the jungle].
"I sort of got my lines where I can go above, but Jake and Foggy I let them have it full blast. I thought I could anyway."
He told ITV's Lorraine on the following morning: "It does come across to the outside as harsh. I can understand that.
"But believe me, on the inside it was nothing like that."
After finishing as runner-up to Fogarty, Quickenden was quick to assert that Bullard was not a bully.
"I really do think that [the public got the wrong end of the stick], because that's what me and Jim were like. We just took the mick out of each other the whole time," he told This Morning.
"And he's obviously grown up playing football, and in the changing rooms you have to [take the mick out of each other] because if you don't, you get targeted, and I've been raised with football and stuff like that as well.
"I think I said, 'It's lucky we're not on the outside because I would have beat you up or something!' and two seconds after that we were dressed as superheroes, running around like idiots. So he's not a bully at all. Obviously it just come across a bit worse than what it was."
Topics: Premier League, Football, Im a Celebrity
Ryan Smart