Nicky Buckly I'M DOING THIS FOR MUM'

A NEED TO HELPTRUMPED ANYJUNGLE FEARS

- Melissa Field

Nicky Buckley admits that a stint on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! was the last thing she expected to be Nicky and Murray were teenage sweethearts. On her 2025 bingo card. “I’m still in disbelief that I agreed to go ahead with this,” Nicky tells New Idea from South Africa, just days before she headed into camp.

With a laugh, she adds: “I’m a girl who likes her coffee and nice sheets. What was I thinking?”

On a more serious note, Nicky, 59, explains why she’s really forgoing her creature comforts to raise awareness about ovarian cancer. Sadly, ‘You can get through anything’ she lost her mother, Joan, to the disease some 20 years ago.

“Mum was only a few years older than I am now and there were no detectable symptoms for her until it was too late,” the former Sale of the Century host explains. “I’m doing [the show] for Mum.”

As there can often be a genetic link to ovarian cancer, Nicky voluntarily opted to have a full hysterectomy last year.