Jordan North had a 'premonition' about 'I'm A Celebrity' before getting the call
Jordan North says he had a 'premonition' right before he got the the last-minute call to appear on 2020's I'm A Celebrity, after show bosses had told him he wouldn't be on.
Talking to Kate Thornton on the White Wine Question Time podcast, North admitted he "knew it sounded made up" but one evening he was on his way to the shop when the thought just came into his head.
"It's so weird," the Radio 1 star said. "I know it sounds like it's made up but I was walking to the Co-op. And it just came into my head and I thought: 'I reckon you're gonna end up doing this, even though they said no.' And I had like a... premonition."
North had been told he hadn't made the cut for the ITV reality show, but was drafted in at the eleventh hour when pop producer (and I'm a Celeb 2021 campmate) Naughty Boy pulled out.
"Then I got a call the next day," North explained. "My agent rung me at seven o'clock in the morning and he never rings at that time.
"And he was like: 'They've asked you to do it. And you've got to ring me back in the next hour.'"
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North said he spoke to his mum and told her he was not going to go on the show. She accepted his decision initially, but then called him back 20 minutes later to tell him she would be so upset and disappointed if he didn't.
The I'm A Celeb runner-up continued: "I rang my agent back up. I said: 'Right, I'm going to do it.'
"I put the phone down before I changed my mind and I went for a run. I usually only run for about 40-45 minutes. I went for a run for an hour and a half.
"And then s*** hit the fan from there on. I had to go and do a medical, I had to go and speak to a psychiatrist, there's so many different things you've got to do.
"And [the other contestants] did it over a week or two weeks. I did it over two days."
He said he was "running around" getting to all the appointments, and that ITV had given him a car and a driver for two days because there were so many places he needed to be.
He told Thornton: "So I just had this driver. I was like: 'What is this, there's a driver waiting outside my house?!
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"I went to the medical and they take your blood pressure, they check for everything. And she said: 'How old are you?' And at the time, I was 30.
"She was like: 'Your blood pressure is really high, are you stressed?' I was like: 'Yes! I don't know what I'm doing here! And I've been running around...'
"I just poured my heart out. 'And I've been running around for two days, I've got to be in Wales in the next 24 hours. I don't even know if Radio 1 are going to sign it off, I am stressed!"
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