Former professional boxer Barry McGuigan and Love Island star Maura Higgins have become the latest contestants voted off I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! Their exit means no Irish people remain in the competition, with DJ Dean McCullough from Belfast eliminated earlier in the week.
During ‘Clones Cyclone’ McGuigan’s exit interview, Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly asked him about his friendship with McFly star Danny Jones, who has described McGuigan (63) as a “fatherly figure”.
McGuigan said: “He’s just such a lovely, great guy. I think he’s going to be the king (of the jungle).”
During Thursday’s episode Masked Singer winner Jones (38) spoke about his relationship with his father, from whom he is estranged.
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In a conversation with former Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse, he said: “My dad, he doesn’t speak to me.”
“It’s just weird because I don’t feel I’ve really healed with it maybe,” he added.
Mabuse (34) asked him if he had gone to therapy, to which he said: “I did but you can go to therapy, but you still crave your dad and that’s what’s hard. That’s why I get so much satisfaction out of Barry.”
In the Bush Telegraph, Mabuse said: “I know that Danny and Barry’s relationship is very special, they’ve come to a point where they love each other and they need each other now.
“It’s nice to know that not only are you going to leave with a brilliant experience, but you’re going to leave here with friends and family for life.”
Asked by Mabuse if Jones and his father had been best friends, Jones said: “He was amazing yeah, we went to see Bolton Wanderers every weekend, got a Maccy Ds before, I’ve got great memories.
“He was a hugger, he was a kisser and then when he left us, that’s when I had to grow up real fast, I bought my mum’s house.
“I was 18 years old, I bought myself a flat in London and I bought my mum’s house, and I put my sister through university.”
Speaking about McGuigan in the Bush Telegraph, he said: “I think the world of Barry, he’s amazing and we’ve been through this whole experience together.”
“It’s just nice having someone older than you that does replace that kind of fatherly figure. Just to put his arm around you and have your back. I’ve not had that feeling for a while,” he said.
During his time in the Australian jungle, McGuigan became emotional as he told his fellow campmates about how his daughter Danika “Nika” McGuigan died aged 33 five weeks after being diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2019.
The Dublin-based actor, who played Danielle in BBC Three comedy Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, originally overcame leukaemia after two years of treatment when she was diagnosed at the age of 11.
Following his exit from the ITV reality show, McGuigan told Good Morning Britain on Friday that his daughter’s death was “the single most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me”.
A tearful McGuigan added: “Losing my daughter five years ago was dreadful, and I never recovered from it, me and my wife, but I’m getting better as time goes on.”
“I used not to be able to talk about it at all, but I know it’s important that I do chat about it, and I know she’s there somewhere,” he said.
“And it’s just her life was so sad, and it all happened at a most important time in her life when things were looking great and she got cancer and she died.
“Sandy and I, my wife, have never really recovered from it. I don’t think we ever will, but time teaches us how to deal with it.”
McGuigan said he found himself openly sharing his experiences of grief in the jungle as all the contestants could do between trials was talk, but he still finds it difficult to speak about his loss.
“I find I choke up every time I talk about it, and people say get over it, but when you love somebody as much as I loved her, it’s almost impossible,” he said.
“So I try my best, and I know in time it will get better, but her passing and how terribly sad it was and how terribly painful it was, it’s just hard to cope with.”
Reality star Higgins (34) told presenters McPartlin and Donnelly that she had a “gut feeling” she would be leaving.
After looking at her jungle highlights, the Longford native said: “I really did embrace it. I didn’t think I would have embraced it as much as I have.”
“I’m much stronger than I ever thought,” she added.
On Thursday, Higgins, Jones, Mabuse and Coleen Rooney greeted hosts Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly for the challenge Battle Blocks, with Mabuse winning a ticket to Celebrity Cyclone.
In another challenge, McGuigan, soap star Alan Halsall, podcast host GK Barry, real name Grace Keeling, and TV star Rev Richard Coles headed down to the Arcade Of Agony Trial clearing to take on Face Invaders, where they scored seven out of eight stars for camp.
I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! airs at 9pm on Virgin Media One – PA
