Matt Hancock’s absence from the I’m A Celebrity contestants’ Whatsapp group was discussed by Babatunde Aléshé during a new TV interview, in which he admitted he was unsure whether or not the former Health Secretary had been deliberately removed. Matt had been a controversial figure in the jungle last year, due to his handling of the Covid crisis – and recent leaked Whatsapp messages have refuelled the scandal.
Talking on the Jonathan Ross show this evening, Babatunde candidly confessed: “I checked today and he’s not in the group anymore.”
He added: “I don’t know if he’s been kicked out, or if he left of his own accord.”
Co-stars such as Boy George had visibly struggled with Matt’s presence in the Australian wilderness, even claiming that had his mother died in hospital during the pandemic, he would have walked out of the show rather than spend time with him.
Babatunde was a little more forgiving, despite acknowledging that it was “tough” being close to Matt under the circumstances.
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“I tried to make good out of a bad situation,” he divulged, adding: “You’re in here, I’ve got to be your teammate!
“At the end of the day, I do believe in second chances and I was just like, ‘Let me at least try to be the nice person.’”
Matt had been unpopular over anger that he’d broken his own social distancing guidelines during the pandemic to steal a kiss with aide Gina Coladangelo, with whom he had an affair.
Incriminating photos of the kiss were plastered across the front page of newspapers, and the ensuing scandal led to his resigning from his cabinet position as Health Secretary.
He tried to redeem himself and win the hearts of the public by entering I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, where he endured a series of gruelling and gag-inducing Bushtucker Trials.
Repeatedly voted for the trials, he was forced to chow down on kangaroo testicles, cow anus and even cockroaches – and being seen as a “good sport” meant public animosity towards him started to fade.
However, debate over Matt’s conduct recently resurfaced after more than 100,000 Whatsapp messages were leaked, painting him in a controversial light.
Some of the messages see Matt seemingly going against the advice of chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty over Covid.
Chris told him in April 2020, just weeks after the first lockdown had begun in the UK, that he recommended Covid testing for “all going into care homes”.
Despite initially describing it as a “positive” step, Matt then seemed to do a U-Turn.
“Tell me if I’m wrong but I would rather leave it out and just commit to test and isolate ALL going into care from hospital,” he wrote.
“I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters.”
Matt also expressed concern that care home testing could “get in the way” of achieving his target of 100,000 tests per day.
However, a spokesperson for Matt has responded: “It is outrageous that this distorted account of the pandemic is being pushed with partial leaks, spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives if followed.
“What the messages do show is a lot of people working hard to save lives.”
Though Matt Hancock’s popularity has certainly thawed, according to Babatunde, his own has soared since the show – especially with the elderly, who he says are driven wild with lust by him.
“One woman was like ‘I want you to come to my house and I’m going to rub your body with butter’,” Babatunde recalled on the Jonathan Ross show, “[but] I said ‘I’m lactose intolerant!'”
The Jonathan Ross Show is screened on Saturday at 21:40pm on ITV and ITVX.
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