I'm A Celeb's hidden secrets - from reason for red socks to most disgusting jungle experience

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! is back on our screens this Sunday for its 24th series. Even though it's a staple of British reality TV, there are still plenty of secrets that even the most dedicated fans might not know about.

This year, we'll see celebs like Coleen Rooney, Tulisa and Danny Jones battling it out for the jungle crown, following in the footsteps of the 266 former campmates who've braved the critters and terrifying stunts of the infamous Bushtucker Trials. But there's more to fear in the camp than just the trials - there are other dangers and gross details that the celebs might not be ready for.

Red socks

The red socks. While you might think they're just part of the uniform, former show medic Bob McCarron, who left in 2022 after 20 years, revealed to Woman's Own that there's a very good reason for their colour. He said that the stars are likely to get bitten by bugs, including leeches, resulting in blood marks on their feet and legs. So, the red socks help to hide these injuries.

READ MORE: Katie Price fans left disgusted as they spot 'unhygienic' detail in video

READ MORE: I'm A Celebrity feud 'confirmed' as star's friend exposes weakness

Camp uniform

When it comes to the camp uniform, the allowed kit list is not much of a variety. Each celeb is only permitted to bring in three sets of underwear and swimwear – everything else is provided by the show. The show's co-creator Natalka Znak originally wanted the pampered stars to only bring one pair of undies, the ones they were wearing when they arrived. “They'd have to wash them every day or go commando,” she told Radio Times. “After months of discussion, we settled on three pairs each. I still think one pair would have been plenty.”

Washing up

The camp provides biodegradable shampoo and soap, which are placed in the communal jungle shower. In the first series, producers even banned deodorant to enhance the authenticity of camp life. However, after numerous complaints about body odour from the camera crew, deodorant was allowed from the second series onwards.

Producers also toyed with the idea of banning toilet roll, meaning the celebs would have had to use leaves. Fortunately for the stars, this idea didn't make the cut.

Telling the time

There are no clocks in the camp, ensuring the celebs are completely detached from the real world and fully immersed in camp life. Even Ant and Dec cover their watches when they enter the camp daily to prevent any sneaky time-checks by the celebs.

Smoking rules

In the debut series of the show, the needs of smoking contestants were overlooked. Alexander Gardiner, the former executive producer, admitted: “We tried to think about absolutely everything when we were creating that first series, but inevitably a couple of details slipped through the net.” He added, “The biggest one by far was cigarettes. We hadn't given smokers any thought at all.”

“Our failure to provide fags goes some way to explaining just how bad-tempered the cast were”. Since then, celebs have been permitted to smoke, but they must do so in a designated area off-camera, which is not included in the nightly edit.

Location, location, location

Over the years, there's been a lot of chatter about whether the location is real or not. The jungle camp is actually located near Springbrook National Park, close to Murwillumbah, New South Wales, right on the Queensland border.

This park is a massive 15,310-acre rainforest, nestled on the expansive McPherson Range, which forms the border between the two states. However, not everything you see on TV is as it seems.

For example, the waterfall where the celebs freshen up is a man-made feature controlled by the production team. Many of the rocks scattered around the camp are also fake, made from papier-mache and hollowed out for cameramen to hide in.

Even some of the camp tasks are staged. When the stars are asked to gather wood for the fire, they have it easy as the logs have already been dried, chopped and scattered by the crew.

Cheating the weather

The celebs may moan about the rain, but it's not as bad as it seems. There's a retractable canopy 50 ft above the camp, keeping our stars dry and the campfire burning.

Over the years, it's been decided that leaving the celebs in a rainy jungle without any shelter would be unsafe and make for rubbish telly. However, the canopy isn't completely weather-proof and doesn't cover the entire camp, and it's known to leak if the rain gets too heavy.

Bug factory

The creepy crawlies around the jungle are very real, but they're actually bred by an animal specialist in a bug factory and bought by the show. Each series uses around 250,000 cockroaches, 153,000 crickets, 500,000 meal worms, 400 spiders, 500 rats, and 30 snakes.

This has caused some issues for producers over the years, with a shortage of cockroaches in Australia in 2012 due to weather conditions. The following year witchetty grubs were not bred successfully, and it's rumoured that one year producers paid locals $5 for every spider they could find in desperation.

Jungle shower

Medic Bob, a veteran of the show for 20 years, has some crucial advice for campmates like Coleen and Tulisa - make the most of the jungle shower. On the spin-off series Extra Camp, he revealed: “Most people think of fungus as mushrooms but we have problems with the cast every year – especially women growing fungus on certain body parts [breasts].” He added: “I've been instructing them to use the shower and personal hygiene a little bit more often.”