Until now, the cast of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! 2024 has been getting on like a house (well, camp) on fire… but less than a week after entering the Jungle, two stars have come to blows.
The likes of Oti Mabuse and Coleen Rooney headed Down Under last weekend for the once-in-a-lifetime experience, while Maura Higgins and Reverend Richard Coles have since joined as latecomers.
Tonight, though, two of the camp’s bubbliest personalities clashed, as Dean McCullough and Alan Halsall gave us the first row of the series.
As camp leader along with Tulisa Contostavlos, Alan, 42, was previously tasked with assigning responsibilities in camp, such as which stars would wash the dishes and who would clean the dreaded dirty dunny.
Dean, 32, and Loose Women’s Jane Moore, 62, were given the job of camp maintenance, which involves collecting firewood.
But after feeding his face at the Jungle Buffet caused Dean to fall asleep, he and Alan locked horns when the BBC Radio 1 DJ eventually got to his feet to lend a helping hand.
Following a huge helping of junk food (awarded after Maura and Richard’s Bushtucker Trial success), a sleepy Dean decided to take a nap. However, with chores still to be done, Jane had to go and collect firewood by herself.
But she confessed, in keeping with camp rules: ‘I can’t do it on my own.’
Watching Jane head off on her own, Coronation Street favourite Alan decided to take the reins and wake Dean up so he could help out with his allocated jungle chores.
Disorientated, Dean was left less than impressed at being woken and hardly stirred as Alan asked him gently: ‘You don’t fancy it? No?’
When he got little response from Dean, Alan decided to go down with Jane to help her so she wasn’t alone.
As Dean headed to join Alan and Jane, he said to Alan: ‘You can go back now.’
Alan explained: ‘I was trying to wake you up as soft as I could.’
While Dean responded: ‘Listen to me. If you’re gonna wake me up, you need to give me a minute, alright?
‘It takes a couple of minutes for my contact lenses to get back working again, alright? So you don’t need to turn around to me and say, “Do you not fancy it?” ok? And then turn around and walk away.’
Alan explained: ‘I’ve listened to you, Jane was halfway down here, that’s why I went…”’
Dean said: ‘Ok, I get that but you need to give me a minute, mate.’
The back and forth continued as the pair repeated their points, with Alan apologising for the way his comments may have come across.
Speaking in the Bush Telegraph later on, Dean told the camera: ‘He didn’t even give me a chance to say yes or no, he was being a real camp leader. He didn’t need to dig me out like that.’
‘Of course, I fancy it. I wanna help Jane. I went straight down and helped her,’ he insisted.
Alan reiterated that his intention wasn’t to offend Dean, while the TV presenter told Jane after Alan had left: ‘I’ll always come and help you, always. You can always wake me up.’
Taking to X to share their thoughts on the argument, viewers largely sided with Alan, branding Dean’s attitude ‘unnecessary’.
‘There was really no need for the way Dean walked up to Alan and got in his face so aggressively. Al handled that really well, like a proper gentleman’, wrote divadaz.
EggrollsByam said the way Dean spoke to Alan was ‘horrible’, while MemesLowQual said the row made him come across as ‘unlikeable’.
I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! continues tomorrow at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
I’m A Celeb’s Dean McCullough and Alan Halsall come to blows as tensions rise