Lisa Riley opens up to the Mirror about enduring tough times in the jungle and how she overcame them in her first proper chat since leaving the show
Lisa Riley opens up for the first time(Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Actress Lisa Riley has told how her beloved late mum helped pull her through her darkest moment in the Jungle. The usually bubbly Emmerdale star said she felt “alone” and “vulnerable” at one stage as she struggled with camp life.
The 49-year-old said at her lowest she took herself the “farthest away” from the camp by the creek to be by herself. “I sat there on my own, and I had a little word with my mum,” she admits. “I spoke to all my angels up there – I’m so blessed – but especially her. I was like, ‘mum, I need some strength. I need to get through. I’m struggling, and I am finding things really hard.’
Lisa was incredibly close to her mum Cath and was left devastated when she passed away from cancer in 2012. She was just 57. The Emmerdale actress says she struggled in the aftermath of her taking part in the fish gut challenge, calling it the “toughest time” she faced.
Asked to describe how she felt, she replied: “I felt alone, vulnerable….the challenge probably takes it out of you, and the feeling that you’ve got to do well, you’ve got to provide.” She said the pressure of everyone doing so well in the trials got to her.
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Jungle sensation Lisa Riley(Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
“We were getting hefty numbers. No one got less than six stars. And I’d done really well. I got a mega number. But then you get back and you don’t know what day it is, what time it is, and you just want that reassurance maybe from home to go, ‘You know what, Lisa, you’re doing b***** brilliant.'” She says that her lowest moment was coming back to the camp after the trial.
She said: “We’d left the camp so quickly that morning, I hadn’t prepared any clean clothes. I had nothing. Everything I had was saturated. So I sat there smelling like a wet fish market nine times over and covered in green stuff in the heat. I was sitting on the bottom step of the Telegraph all on my own. I just wanted time out.”
She says that close pal Ruby Wax noticed she was struggling. She said: “Ruby went, ‘baby’s lost her smile,’ and for Ruby to see that… I had no smile in me. I was like, ‘This is really hard. This is really, really hard.’ And then what I did was I literally took myself down to the furthest part of the creek where they collect wood from. I thought, “I just stink. There was no option B.”
The actress said that her campmates helped her through her pain. She added: “ In the toughest times, I was always the one to make people feel better. But Martin was there, Jack was there for me, Ruby… the boys, I mean, those lads. I’m old enough to be their mum, right? Those boys, I have been there as a sister figure, a mother figure, call it whatever you want, but for the boys to be so instinctive that day especially, and they were like… I could see it around camp, everyone going, “Lisa’s low.” My balloon popped.”
Lisa Riley struggled after the trial(Image: James Gourley/ITV/Shutterstock)
Thankfully, Lisa was able to turn things round, and she said that her experience of the show was “everything I wanted it to be and so much more.” Not only did she enjoy the experience more than Strictly, Lisa even managed to shed 20lbs in camp, which she says was a combination of “portion control” and exercise.
“When you’re in there, people don’t have an idea of the lifestyle, the geography of the camp. It’s the do-ability, the activeness,” she says. “Like, when you go up to the Telegraph to talk, it’s step after step. When you go to a challenge, you never stop moving. It’s endless. It’s not just sat around a campfire having loads of giggles.” She also opened up about her admission in camp that she thought Ant McPartlin was “juicy”.
Lisa laughed: “Any red-blooded woman would say Ant is juicy, and he looks really well. But I’m in a very, very, very happy relationship, I could not be happier. But you know, as I always say, you can go to Waitrose, you don’t have to buy anything.” Asked if there were any blushes when she saw Ant in camp, she added: “I wouldn’t say blushes. Listen, I’m a flirt. I flirt with everybody. That’s who I am. I’m not going to stop. I’m a flirt, and I’m so secure in my relationship I can flirt with everybody, but I know who I go home to every night and who loves me and who I love.”
That man is long-term fiance Al, who she has been with for 12-years. “We know where our bread’s buttered with each other,” she adds. “Al knows fully well what he’s got in me. I’m not shy. I’m very forward-coming. I love a laugh, and I’m a flirt, why not?”
Lisa Riley with Mirrorman Tom(Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Lisa also received plaudits in camp for tenderly encouraging to open up about his dad’s Ozzy’s death. She herself opened up about the death of her mum, as well as her sobriety. She added: “People look at us in the public eye and think it is all champagne and baubles. Don’t get me wrong, it is, but I’m not champagne and baubles. I’m fish and chips, and I want to be fish and chips.
“That’s me, and Jack’s the same. I’m so privileged to have been a part of a show that lets that curtain be pulled down. To think, I go to people who say to me, “What do you do in the supermarket?” I’m doing the b***** shopping like you! And that’s what this show exposes: that I’m fish and chips to a fault and long may that be the case.”