It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week. Thereby, Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking and downloading on today's episode with Peter Dakos, our fifth eliminated celebrity from I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here for twenty twenty four. I wanted to quickly apologize for not releasing the chats with Frankie and Michelle. It was a decision from the team not to publish
on those days due to the Westfield attacks. I'm sure that I will have Michelle on the podcast in the future, and of course we're going to hear a lot about Frankie and his time in the jungle in upcoming episodes from some of his other fellow celebrities, which does include chatting to AFL legend Peter Dakos, who of course bonded with all of the other celebrities and is my guest today. Peter won the hearts of everyone, and of course he did.
Here is an Ozzy legend. We watched him speak humbly about his career, his legacy, and what it's like watching his sons create their own paths from being dropped off the side of the mountain on his very first day. Peter also took part in the first eating trial of the season, how gross. He and Ellie also faced the shafted trial, where he took electric shocks like the champion
that he is. Peter's time and the Jungle was in support of Flicker of Hope, a charity that raises awareness for neurofibromatosis that directly funds research into the genetic disorder that affects one in two thy five hundred people. Peter does reveal with me today how the experience has changed his life and what his family thought of him going on reality television. We will unpack the age difference amongst the celebrities and if he thinks the result so far
is a sign that younger audiences are voting. You will get some interesting insights into what Peter's relationship was like with Hollywood star Frankie and what their friendship is going to look like moving forward. I will also talk to Peter Daikos about how footy has changed over the twenty years since he retired, and what are some of those changes that he really likes. There's so much to one pack with Peter Dakos So sit back and relax as we unpack his time in the South African jungle.
Ben, how are you.
I'm very well, thanks mate.
How are you?
I'm good?
Thank you good. Were yet to recover, but all good.
Your kids were worried about you going in there, apparently because they were worried about how much weight you were going to lose.
Yeah, no, they Yeah, I actually ended up losing. Think, so we always knew that it'd be a bit of a hard road in relation to food and everything. So but it was something I needed to do. I mean, I was looking forward to the experience.
I knew it wouldn't be easy.
And it wasn't and so yeah, to get twenty five days, yeah, I'm really tough with having sort of got myself through it. It was a good experience, real good experience.
Well what can you say to me now about the experience versus what you thought it was going to be like to what it actually was like?
Well, that's the thing, then, you're really I mean, you imagine that it's like someone telling you, you know, how bad their headache is. You can only imagine how for.
Their head is.
I let you it's actually you do have a headache. You really don't know. I mean, I knew it'd be hard that people will be at home and talk about being bored and kolazing. Yet they have the tree, they have their phone, they have, you know, maybe the ability to walk out the door and go down the street or get in the car and drive up somewhere. So I mean there was nothing there. I mean, no hot, running water, food you get You had to work your backside to earn the right to get a meal, and
when you got a meal, it wasn't enough. And so the list to go on and on. I mean, who ever said it up got it right. Someone asked me last night, probed to change.
Well, you wouldn't change anything.
I mean, it's pretty damning the highest order experience, I mean, and all we had to work off is the people that were in there, and we had a really great care in the end, and that made life somewhat easier.
You said that it was easier in the end. Was it not always easy? Like did you just slowly get used to it?
We all were sort of looking at each other, especially into the second and third day, But I was thinking there was the little log fire we used to sit around there. There were logs sitting there and we'd sit on them and they're all carved in with previous celebrities, and you know, they all had the days, you know, cracked in, and you know, I was looking at one in particular, which was the last year, and there was thirty one days that was cracked in, so that that's
where it finishes. After thirty one days, and I was three days. You know, I thought to myself, firstly, what am I doing here? And secondly, how am I going to get through thirty one days? I mean, I think we all surprised ourselves and I think you make adjustments and yeah, again I get back to the people that were there. So it worked really well. And we didn't know each other, so we walked in blind. I had no idea, they had no idea who I was, and it was vice versa and in the end we went.
The first start was finding out a little bit about ourselves and starting to forward, you know, some type of friendship.
And from there, you know, as a.
Passing week went along, yeah, it grew and you could people sort of even opened up more.
It was yeah, it was.
It was great, and that's what made it Was.
It hard to say yes to doing this show considering of its timing and that you were going to miss the start of the footy season. I was worried when I heard your name being thrown around. I thought, well, he's got two boys playing and he's still very much a part of the game for a lot of Australians. Was it hard to say yes to be to taking part of the reality TV show as the twenty twenty four football season was going to start?
Well, yeah, no, it did. Wild Woman pretty you know, as part of my interest in sulf of the Child, so outside of the family like most football you know in Melbourne, in particularly number one, So I'm no different. And I will say though, I mean, you know, well, while I was in Melbourne, I got to keep a certainty game didn't when I heard a rumor that they'd been lobbing to keep me in the jungle because I won the next three while it was away on. But
having said that, it's the first thing I did. I mean, as soon as I got my phone back and my gear my sort of normal, normal year, I banged my phone on. The first thing I did was get hook cuts to the internet and went to the AFL file.
I needed to find out what was going on in the world of footy and how the boys were going, and yeah it was it was nice, a little bit of catching up to do because I've noticed the ladder and yeah, I'm stuck by some of the ladder standings, but yeah, it's going to make over the next week.
Pretty good viewing.
I think I kind of liked in last night's episode that we got to hear you talking about your days in the footy, Like I kind of felt like we would hear more of that throughout the season. I guess I would have liked to have known more from your perspective about footy and how it's changed over the years, because we've come a long way now from I think you retired at nineteen ninety four and now it's twenty twenty four. I don't know for you, how do you think that football's changed in those years.
I think it's changed for the better. I mean, if you look at the other look of football, I mean, yeah, you know, when I started in the late seventies, I mean, you know, guys in the late sixties, you know, I would have noticed suit's changes for the game, and then you know, all of a sudden, I'm playing through the eighties and there were you know, the game got quicker, and you know, the whole landscape and the aesthetics of
the game changed. I mean we went from one umpire when I started, to two and then three and then not even sure we had three back then. I think it was still two, but you know, and now it's it's just a real showcase. I mean, you go to a FOODI game. I love the build up, the lighting, the crowd. Look. The game has changed because the players playing it have changed. I mean the kids these days
they stay at dinosaurs. I mean, and they're dinosaurs because the mums that are pregnant are looking after them, start taking vitamin being active, are lot fitter than backing our I mean, my dad was a smoker in the old days, and I'd imagine where mum was pregnant, we'd be smoking and funny cigarette, you know, in and around mum off is pregnant. Clearly doesn't have a good effect. Although I
was a tolling at stix footer. Yeah, but I think you know, because of the type of kids coming through now, I mean you're getting eighteen year olds at are six and six and can run like the wind, and so the game has changed, and that's what changes the game. It's the type of style that's played by the players that are being recruited. So yeah, look, I love where the games are. We get some great games. It's a tough game for other reasons, and yeah, it'll just keeps
getting better. I think there's been a lot of real changes, but I think I'm in hindsight now it's been to the betterment of the game.
Were the other celebrities that were in the jungle, you know, interested in hearing you unpacking football and how it's changed over the years.
Oh, well, I think then. Yeah, Look I walked in not knowing anyone. They didn't know me, I didn't know them, and so we went to work understanding and look I was in the end. They were really genuine and genuinely wanting to know each other. They wanted to find out more about me and my background. They knew a little bit about the boys, not much, and you know, someone'd say, oh, he has two boys playing. I had to, you know, I had they going, and then I'd drill down a
little bit. Emberone was genuine in trying to find out a little bit about the fellow campmate. And I think the chemistry grew from that, you know, like and it was a great chemistry. We had a really good culture. And I always say culture. His attitude and the attitude of everyone was really one.
Of being supportive.
And you know, if I was having a down day, they'd kicked me up and vice versa. And I took a luxury item with surprise, surprise was a footy and they all loved kicking it or having a go. And we're genuinely like they'd be initiating things as they oh, plea, let a kick, and I go, yeah, yeah, because I love bouncing and kids looking at hand, pointed myself. And in the end they had plenty of takers and plenty of people willing to yeah, either know about footy or pick the footy.
I love it. I mean that's what this shows about. Like every year you hear people talking about that and about the connections that you managed to make. Although I will say the older celebrities are the ones that are going. Is that a conversation that started to happen around camp about maybe the people are voting this year are a lot younger.
It's an interesting point. You may I actually didn't think about it, so it's clearly something that didn't come up in the camp thing. I was probably the oldest behind Denise, and then I think the cv amos is the next. I mean, it's not something that came up.
And you might be right.
I mean, the demographic may be that they're a younger audience that'd be late more to the younger childe that's seen in these reality shows or clearly up there around the social media side of things. But no, I don't see it that maybe they were protecting us older, but maybe they felt we'd gone as far as we could go. No, maybe needed to go home. But look, I will say on that, I mean it was a bit of sleet. I mean I was hitting the pointer that I went out.
I might not have seemed it, but I would pick the pointed after twenty five days and being closed, Yeah, it would have been lovely. But I think the funny thing is that there's a reward at the as I say,
light at the end of the tunnel pictures. I'm heading over the family and it was getting the stage where I was really missing home, especially in the last two three days, and that might have come through and I think people might have, Yeah, just released the sackles a bit and felt that I'd probably done enough time and set me on my way.
What did you think, though, were Frankie leaving early? I mean, did you think that was going to happen? Do? Is that a real surprise for you when he announced that he was going to go home or had some of the cam mates that have seen the wear and tear on him and started to think that might have happened.
Well, yeah, no, Look it didn't surprise me. I mean, Frankie is naturally a Hollywood star. I mean financially, he probably could, you know, own a city if he wanted to. I mean, that's how well he's done. I mean, he's just seen another movie. He's like, he is all hectic. I mean he's a Mads car driver, so he's in that second year. But you know he races his leeds of three hundred k, so you know he's constantly being asked for things.
He's constantly busy. He constantly flies.
Around the States and visiting countries. And he went for a genuine reason, and the reason being he really wanted to reset and he wanted time away to think about things. And the turn he used the one time, especially just before he left. In the two three days leading up, he kept saying, I have to be present more and we're all probably guilty of that where we're in a room with friends, but you're you know, you're having a
chap at half your mind somewhere else. And he just felt that even if he had to stay to the end, he was also he hadn't been home for five weeks and his life was going away two days later for I think a month in Italy, and yeah, he just had a he had a massive reset and he just had had enough and said, you know, I'm out of here, and he wanted to get home. And he did say that he always found it hard to be business like. He said, I have no friends. I'm just a worker.
You know, all these layers were pulled back and he said, I've made more friends here. He even said to me, you know, if you come to stay staying at my house, I mean, I've known Frankie for three odd weeks, so you know, it's amazing how everyone opened up and he started flow that boy did he come home with a bang, And yeah, he was. He was one of the ones I really enjoyed being around. And he made my time a lot better as well.
Well.
I thought he could have won. I think he could have been stuck around. I think Australia might have voted him in, which would have been unusual because I think it's hard and we haven't really seen an international celebrity that's come into the show win before. But I think Frankie could have won if it's stuck around.
Yeah, no, yeah, you're right. I mean everyone had the chance. Everyone everyone had a unique, you know, sort of character, and that's that's one of the things I really enjoyed. You know, you didn't get two people were saying, So everyone was a little bit unique in how they approached the trials. They're either yelling or screaming or punching or stracting or you know how raging and then you know, and that was the beauty of it, and that's what
made it different days. You had a different character or a different person I spent a bit of time with, and it's a sort of made your time move along a lot quicker.
So yeah, it was a good mix of people.
And yeah, and there's definitely people there that I can confidently say that I will catch.
Up with the sorry and then the last I just have to ask the last question. I ask everyone who joins the podcast something really short, because you're about to get in a car, so I've got to let you go. But what if something from behind the scenes, something we didn't as an audience get a chance to see, which might be hard for you because you don't know what we're seeing. But what was something fun from behind the scenes that you know, what it's like to be a celebrity to go on the show?
What's it like? I mean hard to put into words. I mean that's why I use the term unique. I think we use that term when we can't find the words to describe an experience or something. And this was no different. I mean, you know, in this case, I mean it was total bottom.
It was total.
When I say total, I mean minimal food. And you know they took you to the nth degree. Really when it came to hunger, there were no distracted in a time, A simple thing like time. We just view it as nighttime and daytime. I didn't know whether it was seven o'clock in the morning, eight o'clock, six thirty. It was hard to plan, so you know, paper penns, you know,
to keep yourself at his games. I mean there was there was nothing and did the whole thing was designed to take you out of that comfort zone, put her in a really foreign, foreign suaye in to get the reactions that they do get. And I think the beauty of what I was able to get was that And what I found was I had no distraction, so I
had really ample time to think about things. I'll make tweets in my life moving forward, definitely, there won't be massive changes that there's definitely tweets well be.
To day Coss. I just have to say you are an Aussie legend and someone that is in the Zeigist. What a joy to see you in the jungle and I want to say thank you so much for being so generous with your time and talking to me today.
Pleasure Fleet. Then thank you, and you know, maybe one day would catch
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