Dean McCullough, 32, has already proven to be a larger-than-life presence on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! so far this year.
The BBC Radio 1 presenter greeted his fellow contestants with brutal honesty, simply saying “I’m shaking” as it sunk in that he’d be spending his next couple of weeks surviving the Bushtucker trials. Despite admitting that he was scared, Dean is no stranger to going through major challenges in life.
The Gaydio star has battled homelessness and addiction, and this mental strength might give him an edge in his fight to be King of the Jungle.
Earlier this year, Dean revealed that he’d faced homelessness both as a child with his family and as a young adult striking out on his own.
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ITV/REX/Shutterstock)“We weren’t living on the street, we were living on my aunt’s house on a sofa. I was moving between houses on a regular basis,” he told the Big Issue, speaking of the time he and his family had no fixed address for a year after his parents broke up.
Once he was grown up and moved to London he dealt with similar issues, couch surfing while he tried to chase his dreams in musical theatre.
“As soon as I sensed any kind of danger, I’d be straight out of [where I was staying]… for a long time I had no fixed address. I would go out on the Thursday and just stay out all weekend because I just didn’t want to go home,” Dean revealed.
Dean also shared that due to having such a turbulent time with housing, he has “problems with his possessions”... which could make things difficult while camping and sharing with a bunch of other celebs.
While Dean has signed up to potentially eat or drink any number of wild things while on I’m A Celeb, there’s one thing he will always refuse: alcohol. The radio presenter revealed that he went through an incredibly tough time during the pandemic. Dealing with isolation and mental health issues resulted in him turning to the bottle, but Dean soon realised the path he was on and is now teetotal.
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ITV/REX/Shutterstock)“It wasn’t until it got really bad that I realised. What was like a glass of wine of an evening after work turned into a bottle which turned into two bottles and then, some weekends, I was drinking like a bottle of vodka too,” he shared, adding, “It was the pandemic, and I just got myself into a bad way and I was sort of thinking some really, really dark thoughts to myself. Anybody who’s kind of struggled with mental health will know what it’s like."
Dean has also faced suggestions that his bold personality might be a bit like Marmite, with some I’m a Celeb fans hinting that they couldn’t see him winning the crown. Already on Sunday night’s opening episode, Dean faced a jab from his BBC colleague Greg James after he chose to partner with WAG Coleen Rooney rather than his Radio 1 pal Melvin Odoom.
On Instagram while watching the show, Greg took a selfie of his confused face as he watched the scene, and demanded: "Urrrm Dean didn't pick Melvin?!" Adding a tongue-in-cheek photo of another contestant, Barry McGuigan, with a snake, he cheekily snarked: "They should send Dean in as one of the snakes after that behaviour.”
Alongside being seen as snubbing Melvin, Dean has been accused by some of seeking too much attention or airtime, and using Coleen for guaranteed drama.
Coleen’s rival, Rebekah Vardy, laid into Dean for his choice of partner, hinting that he might be rubbing people the wrong way. She raged: “Dean, Dean and his cosying up to Coleen. It’s so very obvious and, believe me, it is going to get tiresome. He absolutely loves to talk about Wagatha and when he does he knows he’s going to get airtime from it.”
Rebekah added: “I’m actually really glad he got voted to do the trial because actually I find him really, really irritating. Give it a rest, mate. I don’t think it’ll take long for the public to get bored of him at all.”
Whether Rebekah’s judgement that the public votes would soon see Dean packing from the jungle remains to be seen. The plucky presenter will have his first chance to prove himself tonight, as he takes on his first Bushtucker trial.
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