As nationwide jungle fever sets in, audience members have noticed one formatting favourite is missing.
During the Bushtucker Trials, the D-list celebrities dine on culinary delights from the local jungle terrain.
This season we’ve watched TV nobodies, athletes and even a TV mathematician dine out on spiders, blended cockroaches, sheep brains and even testicles… But the witchetty grub is no longer on the menu.
The gameshow’s producers have received criticism from television woodsman Ray Mears, who claims the eating of witchetty grubs for the public’s entertainment is disrespectful to aborigines.
Appearing at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Mears said:
It’s rather like someone coming to Britain and saying, ‘Eating a roast potato, isn’t that weird?’ The witchetty grub that the aboriginal people depend upon is a vital, important source of protein.
It was a very important thing and it has a religious significance and so for us to go and make fun of that without showing any kind of respect is very disrespectful.
Arguably the trials represent the most exciting aspect of the show, off-setting the mind-numbing camp scenes we witness in which a group of people we haven’t heard of discuss things we don’t care about.
But thankfully, I’m A Celeb has heeded Mears’ warning and – as they dump a bunch of burnt out British celebs on foreign soil – have opted to approach the format in a manner more respectful to local aboriginal culture.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.