Secret phones, producer ultimatums and how much he really got paid – Beau Ryan has unloaded in an bombshell new interview.
Beau Ryan’s scorched-earth post-I’m A Celeb publicity tour continued today with a candid appearance on Kyle and Jackie O in which he revealed he “didn’t trust” the show’s producers and regretted ever taking part.
Earlier, Beau – who dramatically quit the show in last night’s episode with just days left in the game before the finale – told Fitzy and Wippa he’d “hated” his time on I’m A Celeb, describing it as “torture”.
He went into even more detail in an explosive 25-minute interview with Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS. Here are the juiciest revelations:
He smuggled in a secret phone
Desperate to keep in touch with his family, Beau claims that before entering the game he hid an iPhone inside country singer Brooke McLymont’s guitar, which was then delivered as part of the contestants’ luxury items on day three in camp.
He retrieved the phone without detection – only to find it had no service and low battery.
He revealed he took the phone with him when he went to trials, some of which were up to an hour’s drive away from camp, in the hope of finding service.
Eventually, he smuggled the phone to a producer he’d previously worked with in his hosting duties on Ten’s reality show The Amazing Race.
“I said, ‘Bro, I need you to charge this and find out where I can get some service.’
“I didn’t see him or the phone again.”
His secret ultimatum
Ryan says due to hunger he wanted to leave the game “straight away. I eat about 3000 calories a day – and we had about 3000 calories a day for the whole camp.”
Given this, Jackie O asked if one special solo challenge that saw him rewarded with McDonalds was strategically organised by producers to keep him from quitting. He revealed it came shortly after he gave the producers a secret ultimatum.
“I was sitting there with Joey Essex at the start of the third week and trying to put my producer hat on, thinking ‘What’s the storyline here?’ Maria and Joey’s (romance) is fizzling out, that doesn’t really go anywhere. I looked at Joey and said, ‘I think me and you being hungry dickheads is the storyline here.’ I told (producers) I needed some food or I’d be out of there – and then the Maccas showed up,” he said.
He also said he didn’t let producers know of his decision to leave before he announced it to the camp, as he’d already been talked out of an earlier attempt to quit the show.
“I announced it really late – I knew there was no producers around, because they do shifts, and I knew they’d just try to talk me back in.”
A disorientating entry – and exit
Ryan had to enter quarantine for two weeks on the Sunshine Coast before the show, an experience that already left him feeling “buckled”. Things only got weirder from there.
After quarantine, a hooded bag was placed on his head and he was driven in a car for approximately two hours, then transferred to a blacked-out van, then to a gold cart for another half-hour to get to the filming location of Dungay, some 220km south of the Sunshine Coast.
Then the rest of the journey was on foot: “You put the blindfold on and put your hands on the back of a soldier, and walk for about 40 minutes to get to the camp – so I have no idea where it is.”
Which presented one problem when he quit the show late at night when most of the crew had gone home for the day – he had no idea where to go, and only encountered one guard who told him to get back into camp until producers arrived.
“I walked out of the jungle thinking, what do I do here? Last night when they showed me quitting, I actually had to go back in and reshoot that,” he revealed.
Post-show, a producer from ITV tried to convince him to stay.
“Producers … I don’t trust them. I don’t trust them. She hugged me, she kissed me, she said ‘Do you want to do this?’ Mate, jail’s easier. The food’s better and its probably easier to get out – once you’re out of jail there’s no-one trying to talk you back in. ‘Are you sure you want to do this to your brand?’ Uh, I need to eat!”
Why he’d never do it again
“I made some really good friends, but to be honest … I wouldn’t do it (again),” he said. “How dark I felt on some of those days, I couldn’t do that again, no way. The trauma that I felt. And the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt really anxious, and it’s a by-product of the show.”
How much he was really paid
Unsurprisingly, Sandilands told Ryan he’d been approached many times to appear on the show, claiming he once fielded an offer of $1m which he turned down.
Ryan revealed he was approached before the show’s 2016 second season with an offer of $600,000 to take part – which ended up being a lot more than he was paid to appear in season eight.
“I got talked into it: ‘It’s here (in Australia), you only have to quarantine for three days – actually it’s 10 days.’ It just extends when you’re in it,” he said with a sigh.
Ryan – who previously denied reports he’d clashed with AFL great Nathan Buckley at camp after learning Buckley was being paid $300,000 – confirmed that in return for participation in I’m A Celeb he recieved “some top-up” on his existing deal with Network Ten.
“I’ve got favours up my sleeve at Ten now. And Ten are very good to me – they keep their promises. I love them,” he said.
Whatever favours he does calls in at Ten – let’s hope they don’t scrimp on the catering.
Originally published as Beau Ryan exposes I’m A Celeb secrets in bombshell new interview
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