Exclusive: The heartbreaking reason Leomie Anderson joined Celebrity Bear Hunt

Celebrity Bear Hunt star Leomie Anderson has shared the real reason for her participation in Bear Grylls' new Netflix competition show, and it will melt your heart.

In an exclusive interview with HELLO!, she spoke about how she took part in it as a gesture to her late father: "My dad passed away a few years ago and I know that he would have loved to see me doing something like this, so I thought, 'I'm not going to be scared, I'm just going to give it a go'."

"He's watching and saying 'Mmm, could have done better Leonie but it's alright!'", she joked.

The BBC presenter also had another group of people she wanted to honour. She said: "I wanted to challenge myself too, I have a lot of young female followers and I wanted to prove to them that you can be more than a pretty face. You can try new things and get really stuck in."

Warning! Spoilers for Celebrity Bear Hunt ahead.

The rising Netflix star also spoke about her untimely elimination from the show, saying: "I did find my feet! But it's one of those moments where it was the first time anyone was doing the Bear Pit, so we just had to figure it all out and navigate it."

On the experience as a whole, she laughed: "Did it spark joy? No!"

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However, Leomie had a lot of praise to give to her co-stars: "You guys gave me a lot of joy, for the short period of time we got to converse. The people were definitely the highlight."

Co-star and retired rugby union player Danny Cipriani also opened up about his positive experience with the other participants: "I feel like as an English culture we don't speak too much about certain things, but everyone just dived into it.

"In doing so, we all have bonded in a really beautiful way," he added.

When Danny joked that the benefit of a Netflix show was that Leomie could repeatedly watch her episode, she responded: "I've watched the one and a half episodes that I'm in and that was enough. You want to know what the best part was? My bikini, glad that shot got in, thank you, Jesus, nothing else."

However, despite everything, the fashion model hasn't ruled out working on a Bear Grylls show again: "I'd do Holly's position. If you need a new host, I'm your girl!"

Celebrity Bear Hunt is available to binge-watch now on Netflix.