I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! has been hit with over 1,000 Ofcom complaints following Matt Hancock’s arrival.
The return of the ITV show saw ten celebrities enter the Australian jungle, and former UK Health Secretary was later announced as a bombshell campmate alongside Seann Walsh.
The 44-year-old made headlines last year after it was revealed that he had breached Covid-19 social distancing restrictions by kissing his colleague Gina Coladangelo at his cabinet office – despite being married; he was was subsequently forced to resign from his position as Health Secretary.
Matt’s inclusion in this year’s I’m A Celeb line-up sparked outrage amongst the British public.
Now, almost 2,000 complaints about the show have been submitted to Ofcom – totalling at 1,968 official complaints.
The broadcasting regulator confirmed that around 1,100 of these were directly linked to Matt being in the jungle.
However, some complaints have also been those voice their concerns about how he has been treated by his fellow campmates.
Last week, Matt addressed his COVID-19 kissing scandal on I’m A Celeb.
Speaking to his campmate Babtúndé Aléshé while sat on a log, Matt confided in him that his life had been “tough” ever since the kissing scandal came to light.
“You messed up,” the comedian told him candidly.
“It was really tough. I messed up and I fessed up,” Matt said. “I resigned and it’s no excuse, but I fell in love, right? That also had a lot of other consequences obviously.”
Babatúndé joked: “You didn’t just ‘fall in love’ you were grabbing booty bruv!”
Matt replied: “Oh, give over,” before adding: “That’s been hard. I obviously brought it on myself, so yeah… it’s been tough.”
Asked whether he was still with “the lady”, the former Health Secretary said: “With Gina? Yeah, very much so, yeah, totally. That’ll be the best thing about being kicked out, seeing her on the bridge.”
Matt was also grilled on the scandal by his campmate Scarlette Douglas, who candidly told him that his breaching of Covid-19 restrictions was making it “difficult” for people to warm up to him in the jungle.
“A lot of things that happened with you during the times, which does make it difficult,” the TV presenter told him. “A lot of people had difficult times, and then to see that people that had kind of set the rules had then broken them I think was a big slap in the face for everyone.”
Matt responded: “Look, I know how people felt. That’s why I resigned, right? I know how people felt and so good on you for saying that, thank you.”
Earlier this year, Matt addressed the scandal in a tell-all interview on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett.
The father-of-three explained that he “fell in love with somebody” and it “all happened very quickly” – but insisted he did not break the law.
He said: “I resigned because I broke the social distancing guidelines. By then, they weren’t actually rules, they weren’t the law. But that’s not the point.”
“The point is they were the guidelines that I’d been proposing. That happened because I fell in love with somebody.”
Matt said he had known Gina, the woman he was spotted kissing in leaked CCTV footage, for “more than half” his life, and explained that she had been tasked with helping him communicate better with the public.
He told Steven: “We spent a lot of time together, ironically trying to get me to be able to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way, and we fell in love.”
“That’s something that was completely outside of my control and I, of course, regret the pain that that’s caused. It actually happened after the rules were lifted, but the guidance was still in place. I hold no bitterness about this because I broke the rules, I ‘fess up. I broke the guidance.”
Matt also insisted he did not have “casual sex” with Gina, who he is now officially dating, saying: “I haven’t had casual sex with anybody. I fell in love with somebody.”
I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here continues on ITV and Virgin Media One tonight at 9pm.
