I'm A Celebrity star addresses 14-year feud: 'He pretended to be my friend'
Lembit Opik has opened up about his frosty relationship with Nigel Havers, tracing the tension back to their days on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
The 2010 series saw Lembit among the celebs to enter the jungle, but it wasn't the competition or missing out on the crown to Stacey Solomon that got under his skin but rather his campmate Nigel. The former MP, who was the first politician to appear in the jungle-based reality show, has now shared that he and Nigel haven't exchanged a single word in the 14 years since their time in the Australian bush.
However, despite this Lembit has still slammed Nigel as "two-faced." At the time, Nigel quit the show during the Kangaroo Court challenge, which involved mild electric shocks for failed tasks. Lembit now claims that the actor has spent the last decade "rubbishing" him.
Discussing the feud, Lembit told the The Sun: "The ones that annoyed me the most were some of the celebrities, like Nigel Havers, who walked out because he couldn't take the heat and spent the last decade rubbishing me. We've not been on each other's Christmas lists since 2010. Yeah, Nigel Havers was two-faced. He pretended to be my friend. I only realised what he really thought when I saw the show after I came out.
"He considered me to be mad, but frankly, I was making his tea for him. I was his tea boy. And the gratitude I got shown was to him for him to stab me in the back when he came out.
"That's regrettable, and I would point out that I outlasted him in the jungle, and as far as I'm concerned, I win. Nigel, you keep trying, but you can never take that away from me, Nigel. You walked out of the stage."
Nigel previously hinted at a feud between himself and Lembit on Good Morning Britain back in 2018, where he quipped: "If I'd stayed there I would have killed somebody, his name was Lembit Opik and I was just about to murder him."
He also expressed his discontent with the reality show during the conversation with Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid, sharing that I'm A Celebrity "wasn't the happiest of experiences" for him. He summed up his stint on the show with a candid reflection: "The thing is, I'll sum it up in a word... two words: total boredom."
