READY TO RUMBLE

SOAP star Lisa Riley has always turned down a jungle challenge... until now.

- MARION MCMULLEN

Lisa, who plays Mandy Dingle on ITV soap Emmerdale, says she has been asked to be in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! numerous times before.

She adds: “Now I've finally said ‘yes, the reason is I’m going to be 50 next year, it’s 30 years on and off playing Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale and 10 years of being sober.

“It’s like a big baguette where everything I wanted was in it, and it’s I’m A Celebrity’s 25th series anniversary too.”

But she admits it is going to be a tough ask coping with her phobias of rats and the dark. Lisa has tried to prepare herself for what lies ahead.

She says: “One of the prop girls at Emmerdale has two pet rats. We have been doing some ‘rat prep’

“She brought them in for me to try and hold them.

“I'm also scared of the dark and I have been practicing with my partner, Al, walking around our home in the dark.”

Presenters Ant and Dec are back in Australia with the new series and joining Lisa at the camp at Murwillumbah, New South Wales will be Ruby Wax, Spandau Ballet star Martin Kemp, model Kelly Brook, former England Lionesses footballer Alex Scott, TV personality Jack Osbourne, rapper Aitch, social media star Morgan Burtwistle (who is known as Angryginge), EastEnders’ Shona McCarty and comedian Eddie Kadi.