Love Island legend Maura Higgins and Reverend Richard Coles talk to the Mirror and confirm they are jungle-bound – and set to spark chaos on I’m A Celebrity 2024

Ex Love Island star Maura Higgins and Reverend Richard Coles have finally been confirmed to be entering the I’m A Celebrity 2024 camp with them set to shake things up.

The duo spoke to the Mirror to reveal they would be arriving on the show on Thursday in some exciting show news. It was revealed by hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly at the end of the episode that Maura and Richard were on their way, in scenes to air on Thursday night.

The hosts confirmed the pair would arrive and be in a separate camp, where they would have to take on a secret mission. Maura is in Australia after jetting straight in following a boozy, blow-out in Las Vegas. “Honestly, I’m not good….I feel like I’m in The Hangover, I’ve even got the shakes,” she laughs.

“I have no clue what time it is, I don’t know where I am. In fact, I’ve done the opposite of preparing myself [for the jungle]. I’ve tried not to think about it, because when I think about it, I get so much anxiety.”

She will become only the second ever Love Islander after Olivia Attwood to appear on the ITV show… and is determined to fly the flag for the show’s former contestants. “I just don’t want to let people down, because everyone’s been DMing me, saying ‘Oh my God, I hope you’re doing the show.’” she explains. “I don’t want to back out of the trials and be the biggest wimp in the camp.”

Maura Higgins is going into the jungle ( 
Image:
Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)

Maura: ‘I don’t know where I am.’ ( 
Image:
Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
She says her mum was left flabbergasted when she told her she’d signed up for the Jungle. “She nearly died. She went: ‘Maura, how are you going to do that?’ She is baffled as I’m more of an indoor girl…I like my hotels. I’ve never slept outside,” she says. She refused to camp even at festivals. “I’m always like, ‘no, get me back to a hotel,’” she laughs.

So what can we expect when she enters the camp alongside Rev Richard Coles as one of the late arrivals. “It’s been five years and I think I’ve matured, but I still have a potty mouth,” she explains. “I’m still the same kind of girl but I’m not going to go in and annihilate anyone. However, if someone gets on my nerves, I’m not really one to hold it in. I do speak my mind. If someone patronized me, I get really irritated. Like, that’s one thing that really drives me mad.”

Reverend Richard Coles says his preparation for the jungle entailed consuming 5000 calories a day on a cruise and avoiding ‘triggering’ nature documentaries. The star said: “I would like to say that I’ve been lowering my calorie intake to prepare for that, but that’s not worked out so far. I’ve been trying not to look at nature programs about the horrors of Australia.”

The 62-year-old says he is worried about his snoring and “everybody wanting to kill me because I keep them awake at night.” He added: “I am also worried about finding a fear I didn’t know I had yet and going to pieces on television in front of a koala or wombat or something.”

But Richard is also thrilled about being the first vicar in the jungle. ”I don’t think there are many precedents for this, although, vicars have been going into jungles for years and years and years as missionaries.”