'She's a funny lady': Stacey Solomon opens up about Gillian McKeith and said she only saw the 'jokey' side of her

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDsLBu8ra0Aendofvid

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By GEORGINA LITTLEJOHN


Queen of the jungle: Stacey Solomon talks about her time in the jungle on This Morning today


She might have rubbed all the other campmates up the wrong way with her fainting spells and constant moaning about the Bushtucker Trials.

But Gillian McKeith will always have a fan in Stacey Solomon, who defended the nutritionist today live on TV.

In her first TV interview since being crowned I'm A Celebity's Queen of the Jungle, Solomon said she really liked the Scotswoman.

And speaking to Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on This Morning today, she said she only saw the fun side to her.

She said: 'I really cared about Gillian...genuinely. She's a funny lady - we only ever saw the side of her that was funny and jokey and a little bit scared of things, we didn't see all the trials and what everyone else was seeing.'

And she admitted that she thought that the public were only voting for Gillian to do all the Bushtucker Trials because they thought she was good fun.


Rainforest friends: Stacey she she really liked Gillian McKeith and only saw the fun side to her


And when Schofield told her that Gillian was 'driving us mad', Stacey replied: 'Well we didn't know - we are just thinking she is funny and that everyone wants to see her again.

'So she was coming back and cooking us food and putting her contraband in and we were like "wicked, cheers Gillian" and then it got to a point where I didn't want to ever say anything bad behind her back, and it scares you because she's got two children at home watching and maybe I should just say what I think.'

Stacey also said she still can't believe she was crowned the winner and managed to last the three weeks inside the jungle camp.

She said: 'I remember before I went in You Tubed every single bush tucker trial there's ever been I kept thinking I've got to see what I'm getting myself into! And each time [I saw one] I was like "Oh no!"


Reunited: Stacey gives Gillian a warm hug upon leaving the show last Saturday


'All my family were like "good luck" and "we'll see you in two days". No one thought - even I didn't think I could do anything in there, I was just like "do your best and see what happens".

'I look at clips and I can't believe I did that! There's nothing on there that I look at and think "yeah, I could do that again" but it's literally you've got to feed people and you've signed yourself up to something and you're thinking "just do it, just do it".'

But she admitted that one of the Bushtrucker Trials, that required her to eat kangaroo parts, was the worst part of the experience.

She laughed and said: 'They were the worst! They are so chewy and you don't want to be chewing and having this thing in your mouth! You just can't swallow it and then you've got Bob going "don't swallow this one whole, this is a big one". You are just thinking "I want it gone, get it out!"'


Time of her life: Stacey said she enjoyed every moment as an I'm A Celebrity contestant


And when Schofield gushed that she was ' just so positive!' she admitted that she must have annoyed her camp mates at times.

She said: 'It must be annoying for people because sometimes everyone has their down days and I was just like "come on, lets go swimming or lets cook some rice!" because I really did enjoy it in there.

'I really wanted to make the most of it because I know how quickly things are over - X Factor was on for three months and it was gone in seconds - so [I thought] three weeks is just going to go so I wanted to enjoy every second.

'But I think for some people that's a bit frustrating because they just want to have a down day, and I'm like [waving arms in the air] "Hello!"'


Better than bugs and cockroaches: Stacey tucks in as she joins chef - and last year's I'm A Celebrity winner Gino D'Campo and Leigh Francis as Keith Lemon for a cooking segment on the show


She also didn't mind the rain and told her hosts that it gave her an excuse not to wash and not 'get in that cold pool!'

But she said the worst part of being in the jungle was missing her two-year-old son Zach and not being able to talk to him or hug him.

She said: 'If I had my Zach there and my family I could've lived there forever! The hardest thing was knowing that he could see me every day but that I can't cuddle him or kiss him or tell him what I'm doing.'

And she also revealed that she would love to do a duet with runner-up Shaun Ryder, and giggled: 'Well you never know... We are such opposites but I love him so much!'
Overall, she said the experience was 'everything and more' and added: 'I've never felt like I've overcome things like I overcame things in their and I've never felt so lucky to be alive and lucky to have everything.'


Star of the show: Stacey looked very chic and seasonal in her beige cape as she left the This Morning studios


source: dailymail
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She may not be much of a celebrity. But smiley Stacey has proved Essex girls are no joke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWZomhHO7I8endofvid

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By LIZ JONES

Doting: New queen of the jungle Stacey Solomon with her son Zach, two


The first words that flew out of Stacey Solomon’s wide mouth as she was parachuted from a plane to join the other celebrities in the Australian rainforest were typical: ‘I’m the luckiest girl in the world!’ No hysteria, no vanity, no cod heroics, just pure, unadulterated joy and gratitude.

There were no crocodile tears during the three weeks Stacey inhabited the I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! jungle; merely a desire to grasp life with both French-manicured hands.

‘Lord only knows I’m annoying, so thank you for having me,’ she said as she accepted her crown. And with those words, a brand-new star was born.

Why do I love Stacey? Can I count the ways? There is no artifice about her, no vanity at all — she described her special skill on entering the show as ‘talking’. No chip on those gloriously broad shoulders (unlike Cheryl Cole, who felt the need to tick off a contestant on The X Factor for daring to highlight her working-class roots).

When Stacey was crowned Queen Of The Jungle on Saturday night, having brought fellow finalist Shaun Ryder out of his shell (her presence was like a deliriously sunny, ripe peach placed under the nostrils of a particularly recalcitrant tortoise), she was shown clips of her best moments on the show, and could only exclaim how hideously unattractive she looked.

As she hugged the other stars, she warned them disingenuously about her dodgy breath. What a breath of fresh air (probably an ­inappropriate analogy) that here was a young woman, who, despite her working-class roots and hunger for fame, was not all about false eyelashes, It-bags, and finding fun in the ­bottom of a vodka shot.


Stacey Solomon: 'There is no artifice about her, no vanity at all'


She is an unlikely modern-day heroine, not least because she was born of that most vulgar of the decade’s inventions — reality TV. Yet unlike many so-called celebrities who have emerged from the same cocoon, she has remained as true to her working-class roots as the day she was born.

Before coming third on last year’s X Factor, she worked behind the counter at her local chippy, Oh My Cod. Stacey knows how hard real life can be, and does not want to go back to it. That’s why she is grateful for every opportunity her TV career gives her — even if it does mean eating the odd witchety grub.

Not for her the anger and unedifying moments of spite and resentment displayed by her predecessor, the tragic, late Jade Goody. Stacey will laugh and chatter her way through everything. Why ponder the darker side of life too much?

Who can forget when, on reaching the finals of The X Factor last year, she was asked what she would do if she didn’t make it. With her big beaming smile and trademark foghorn, she screeched: ‘There’s always Asda!’ Quite simply, she oozed an old-fashioned, natural high. Surely the best kind there is.

Stacey Solomon was brought up in Dagenham, Essex, a place formerly only famous for its car factories. She has a two-year-old son, Zach, with ex-boyfriend Dean Cox.

‘Where is my baby? I want to see my baby!’ she kept asking Ant and Dec as the fireworks were set off, and the closing credits started to roll. There has never been a winner who garnered more votes from the public, or such high praise from her fellow contestants.

To me, the reason she stole our hearts is pure and simple: she’s an Essex girl. I was born in Chelmsford, the county town, went to school in Brentwood, and spent my teenage years hanging out in dodgy nightclubs in Southend-on-Sea. I was Miss Talk of the South 1975 — and by 1979 I was living in London’s Barbican working as a sub-editor on a glossy magazine.

I guess that tells you something about us Essex girls: we are fiercely proud of our roots but desperate to leave them behind.

The most exciting thing I ever found to do was to trawl Romford Market on a Saturday afternoon, which is why anyone born in Essex is desperate to make it to the ­capital, so tantalisingly close is it, just down the dreadful A12.

Why are Essex girls the best in the world? Essex girls’ dreams are more vivid than anyone else’s because the county itself is so monochrome: ­Sixties concrete high-rises, endless roundabouts and housing estates. The beach at Southend is ­comprised of mud.

For Stacey, Liverpool Street station was the shining gateway to success, a new life away from shopping precincts and dead-end jobs.

As well as ambition, Essex girls have a great sense of humour, developed after generations of being the butt of jokes, and a real desire for luxury. After all, we invented chavdom, a much-maligned quality — but all it means is we want a better life.


Good sport: Stacey Solomon during one of her horrific tasks in the jungle


We are grafters, too, and independent: we have had to be, given that Essex boys, the randiest boys in the world, love fast cars, copious amounts of cologne, earrings and putting their feet up.

Essex boys are charmers, and can lead a nice girl like Stacey down the garden path. It’s nice to see she is now in a happy relationship, with new boyfriend Aaron Barnham, a painter and decorator.

Stacey is a throw-back, the last of a breed we thought had gone out with food rationing and gas masks, the stoicism of the Cockneys who moved north after the Blitz coursing through her veins.

Is Stacey a good role model? Most definitely, despite her admitting in the jungle that she believes reading gossip magazines to be as rewarding as reading books, because ‘it’s all stories, I love to see what a celebrity is wearing, and what their house is like’. You can tell Stacey is not ignorant in the way Jade Goody was.

While Rebecca Ferguson, another thoroughly nice single mum from Liverpool who looks poised to win The X Factor next weekend, is much more talented and beautiful than Stacey, it is Stacey’s very ­British brand of ordinariness that has made even Middle Englanders embrace her.

She might have very little talent, but who cares? Aren’t you, like me, a little tired of all these wannabes, giving it 200 per cent?

Stacey is a natural, and she’s nice, surely a far rarer quality than being able to top the iTunes charts these days.

And what better example for young women than to see someone laughing all the time, rather than moaning and whinging.

Stacey never once gossiped about anyone, or tried to impress (I loved it when she first met Linford Christie and exclaimed: ‘I wanna race you!’), but always tried to see the best in them.

She warmed my cold winter ­evenings like a bowl of creamy porridge. I was so angry when Gillian McKeith made her cry. It was as unnecessary and shocking an act, surely, as placing a kitten in a wheelie bin.

What do I hope Stacey does next? I’d love to see her play Eliza Doolittle on the West End stage, but in real life I don’t want to see her Henry ’Igginsed. I hope she finds success.

She is not calculating, in the way the dreadful Myleene Klass was when she, too, donned a bikini to wash under the waterfall in the jungle. While Myleene was doing mental arithmetic, wondering how much the exposure of her breasts would earn her in a future lingerie campaign, you could see Stacey was just thinking: ‘Oh my God, I stink!’

I really hope Stacey makes it to a mock-tudor mansion in Loughton, where she will zoom around Epping Forest in an open-top car, singing at the top of those lovely lungs, saying, ‘Oooh, I dunno!’ at every opportunity, purchasing leopard-print ­cushions and Versace outfits, living the dream we all dreamed.



Stacey Solomon Wins I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here 2010


source :dailymail
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