Ant and Dec reveal moment I’m A Celebrity set was destroyed during storm
1 December 2021, 10:41
Ant and Dec reveal the only thing not damaged by Storm Arwen was the castle on I'm A Celebrity
I'm A Celebrity hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly have revealed what happened when the show was taken off air over the weekend.
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I’m A Celebrity was thrown into chaos this week after the show had to be cancelled due to Storm Arwen.
ITV bosses announced on Saturday that the ITV series would not be airing after extreme wind and rain lashed the Welsh castle.
And now Ant and Dec have opened up about what really happened behind the scenes, and the moment the set was completely destroyed.
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Ahead of the show returning on Tuesday night, Ant and Dec told This Morning’s Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that bosses ordered them to come into the castle on Friday afternoon.
They said: "We got a call on Friday afternoon to come into site ASAP as we had to pre-record the show just to be safe in case satellites went down."
Explaining what had happened while filming, Dec, 46, continued: "We could hear the winds howling and blowing so we knew it was pretty rough.
"Then we got a call Saturday morning to say basically the wind had pretty much destroyed the tech base, the marquees had come down and trees had been felled and borders had moved."
While the winds ripped through the production base, Gwrych Castle itself was the only building unaffected.
Dec said he was ‘gutted’ the show had to be cancelled for the first time in it’s ten year history.
"No one was allowed back on the site,” he said, continuing: “We had no choice but to pull he show. We were just gutted.
"We had to put the celebs back in to quarantine. It's been a huge upheaval of a week."
Ant went on to praise the show's production team, saying: "They worked round the clock.
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"The castle is the one thing that's absolutely fine. The only reason we took the celebrities out because it was just mean to leave them.
“They have no phones, no internet and are cut off from the rest of the world - just how we like it."
He added: "They were absolutely gutted to leave. Arlene took her sleeping bag. Danny's been sleeping on the floor because he's not comfortable in the bed.
"They've done a week of it and they want the full experience."
The celebrities were allowed back into the castle on Tuesday and the show returned live for the first time in three days.