Boy George reveals fears that he will annoy I’m A Celebrity campmates with his strict daily routine
I'M A Celebrity star Boy George has revealed his fears at annoying his campmates with a special night-time routine.
Boy George told The Sun that he "chants" every night before going to bed.
The Karma Chameleon star admitted he doesn't sleep a lot because he finds sleep a "bit of a hindrance" because he can’t get things done.
Instead of bickering over the I’m A Celebrity firepit, George revealed that he intends to take himself away from the other stars, who include Love Island’s Olivia Attwood and politician Matt Hancock.
He explained: “I’m going to obviously do yoga and I chant and I know that will annoy some people — so I can hopefully find a space where I can do that because I think that will keep me more sane.”
George, at 61 this year’s oldest campmate, said he signed up for the show only after being persuaded by hosts Ant and Dec.
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He said: “I went on Saturday Night Takeaway a while back and I feel like I was set up by Ant and Dec because they asked me, ‘What does Karma Chameleon mean?’
“And I was like, ‘Never having to do I’m A Celebrity’, as a kind of joke. And then they said to me, ‘What would make you do it?’
“I said, ‘If you did like a vegan or vegetarian one’. I think I said vegan, but I am not vegan, I am vegetarian. And they said, ‘We can!’ And I thought, ‘Oh sh**!’”
George nearly had second thoughts after ITV producers approached him. He said: “I talked about it with my manager, and I said, ‘Oh I’m not doing it.’
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Laughing, he added: “Then I spoke to Ant and Dec and you know how charming they are . . .”
He continued: “You know TV is very different. I’ve always watched the show and it’s not as it’s not as aggressive as it used to be.
“If you go back to when, say, Johnny Rotten was on it or Katie Price — that was really hostile and that’s not something I would have enjoyed.
“I mean, I don’t mind an argument or a debate and I’m excited about who might be in there and what might come up. And, you know, I try to be an intelligent person.”
However George, who slammed Kim Kardashian last month on Instagram for failing to condemn Kanye West over his “anti-Semitic” slurs, revealed that he will not waste his energy on “pointless” squabbles in camp.
“It’s about listening to other people, us Geminis, we’re not great at that. We’ve already made up our minds a lot of the time about what we think and, you know, my opinions about things, particularly in the last sort of three or four years, have changed a lot.
“It’s one of the things that until you’re in that situation, you don’t really know how you’re going to react but my appetite for pointless arguments is greatly diminished unfortunately for you guys.”
“Well I think over the last kind of 10 years, or actually the last sixty years, I’ve done a lot of work on myself,” he said, speaking from isolation ahead of the series starting on Sunday, November 6.
“I feel like at this point I’m quite good at coping with where my own head takes me, do you know what I mean?”
“All through my life I’ve done various types of therapies and in the last two years, I’ve been practising this thing called the Three Principles, which is, it’s not really therapy as such, because it’s about sort of how you manage your own thinking.
“I guess the best way to describe it is mind laundry - you kind of look at your reactions to things and I think, in a large part it is about sort of taking a breath before you react, you know, in the sort of current culture.
“Because we have these devices where we can insult people and we can respond to people immediately.
“If you go back to the Eighties or Seventies or whatever, if somebody wanted to say something horrible about you they had to write a letter to a newspaper or they had to be on some TV programme to voice their view.
“Whereas now everyone has access to giving their opinion straightaway. So I feel like if you are in the public eye you have to be more mindful of how you respond to them.
“So this sort of practice [Three Principles] is very useful for pausing before you say what you might have said 10 years ago.
“I was quite quick with my responses, you know, and it’s something I’ve really worked on in terms of my own sort of a process with communication and thinking and all those sorts of things.”
But the singer, who is synonymous with extravagant eye makeup and bold hats, admitted that he is looking forward to showing the
The singer, who recently put his £17million Grade-II listed home in the leafy London suburb of Hampstead up for sale, said: “Well, most of the time I am stripped back, I don’t walk around just like I’m going on stage most of the time.
“When I was 19 or 20 obviously I always looked like that you know, because there was more of a pressure.
“I think as I’ve got older I’m kind of more comfortable with who I am - I don’t talk about ‘Boy George’ as if he’s a separate person to me.
“But when you dress up a certain way, people react very differently. You know, if I’m not dressed up, sometimes I go to a restaurant and people can be quite rude actually.
“The minute they know who you are, they soon change their tune. You know, it’s a fascinating thing to have such an extreme look at then look so different without it.
“I can get on the bus, on the tube and people don’t really bother me and I am cool if they do - I am not as uptight as I used to be.”
However despite stripping back the glamour, the iconic singer, who has customised his camp uniform by sewing on red polka dots to his khaki shirt, revealed that viewers can still expect the chart-topping that they know and love.
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Asked how he would feel to be crowned “Queen” of the Jungle, he said: “I don’t think you should go on a show like this if you don’t want to do your best.
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“I mean, it’s the same as walking on stage - I don’t ever walk on stage and think I will give a half level performance, you know.
“I feel like I’ve been paid well for it so I’m going to be a Boy Georgey as I can.”