It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload, the podcast past week that might welcome back guys to TV Reload. As you may know, my name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get all the insight goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are still a major part of our home entertainment, and yet very little is known about how our favorite
shows get made. So I've been looking for guests that want to dive just that little bit deeper into the shows they're currently filming or making, so that you can hear all their exclusive stories and gain access to the biggest names in Australian television. I want to thank you for downloading or subscribing to this podcast however you've found it. I love hearing your feedback, so make sure you leave a review or a comment on your chosen podcast platform.
This chat, I'm joined by fifty percent of the Will and Woody Drive show from Kiss FM.
That's the Woody part.
Just for clarity, the man who has just been eliminated from the African Jungle on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here, The popular radio host had taken on Celebrity Apprentice Ninja Warrior, but nothing prepared him for what Network ten had install. Yes, tougher than getting up for breakfast radio, worse than an ob on a Saturday or a Sunday, and much worse than recording a.
Live read for a yogurt stall.
Woody gave us laughs, speedos, and some tears, and he joins me now to unpack the reality show, which has been a huge success for Network ten's engagement. I will ask Woody what the real reason was for taking on the show alone, leaving his co host Will behind. We will discuss some postgame thoughts, including what he should and shouldn't have taken into the jungle. We will talk about the fake salaries being leaked to the media and if they were even close to what actually turns up in
your bank account. Plus, we will get plenty of exclusives from behind the scenes of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, which is now on Network ten, which you can catch up on Tenplay if you've fallen behind anyway, Let's bring Woody into the podcast, and you know what, I really hope you enjoy this episode of TV Reload.
Hey, buddy, how are you?
Hey?
So good?
Okay, you I'm very well, And this is strange for me because you've interviewed me on your shows before. I've never had to interview you. So the shoes on the other foot.
Yeah, we're flipping the tables. And from a memory, you were a very good interview. So I will try and lift my energy and provide you.
With some good stufff Well, congratulations on surviving the African jungle.
I'm very proud of you.
Thank you so much.
A bloody tough slog, really really difficult to deprivat in missing my beautiful six months old daughter, missing my fiance. So yes, I do appreciate you having some empathy there on how table walls to get through twenty seven days.
One of the questions I always have for people to go on these shows, and I'm sure you've watched them before, when contestants go on them leaving their babies at home and they get so upset and you hit the television because You're like, they signed up for this, they knew this was going to be tortures. They knew their baby was going to be at home.
What happens? Did you get in there and forget they're really good.
Bran, Like, I really, I've put myself here. You agreed to do the show, so you can't really be getting too angry about it. But I think for me, when I was, you know, pondering whether to do the show or not. To be fully honest, I was a no early on just because of the baby thing. I was like, my baby's going to be six months old, Like, I just can't be away from home, not only because I've missed the bub but also leaving my beautiful fiance min one aunt with a baby is just not a very
good thing to do. But thankfully she was incredibly supportive, and when.
I thought about it more, I really.
Wanted to do something that scared me and it was really outside of my comfort zone to in some way show my daughter that that is absolutely the way to live your life. And whilst I appreciate that, you know, given that she is six months old, she probably hasn't taken in that lesson watching me in the gungle, but when I'm.
She probably spent more time watching you. I mean, you are is it work on the radio, So now she gets to see you on the Telly.
My parents did saying that when I went into the jungle. They were like, this, this is us hanging out.
With you more that when you live twenty.
Minutes away, we actually like get to catch up with you every night, which was nice.
I thought it was really pretty and really nice when you spoke to your dad on your drive show today and you said, you know what, moving forward, I'm going to give you a call while I you know, push my bike or ride my mike after doing the radio show every day. Isn't it funny how these experiences can make you really miss those people that are very important to you in the outside world totally and.
Family, and you just big time like every spare moment I have now I'm going to spend with my little girl, Remy and my fiance min and I just feel like
it prioritizes your life so beautifully. And you know, when I was thinking about how much I get from spending time with Remy, I naturally went to my parents and was like, ah, it's so not fair that I really I'll put my hand up and rather ashamedly admit that I'll go a few weeks without speaking to my parents, and you know, they obviously would love to hear from me.
More so I have set that that every single show that I finish, I'm going to call Mum and dads, and I imagine after two weeks of this, they're probably going to start sleeping. But maybe I go back to my old ways and.
An answering machine. Please leave a message after the beef.
You know, you know, now that you've experienced the jungle, what is something that you took into the jungle that you didn't need? Because you know, you're often told, okay, you can take a few things in there to survive, clothing being some of it.
But is there anything that brought in yourself? What the hell is this here?
Umm?
I actually I'm not a very organized or planned gentleman, ben, So I actually didn't bring that much in. I strapped a whole bunch of salt and pepper and beef seasoning and sugar to.
My inner thigh, just in case you want to cook yourself on the barbecue.
And that was actually, that was so necessary because, let me tell you, after twenty seven days of just rice and beans, slavor is a beautiful, beautiful thing that everyone just needs to appreciate so much more So, what did I bring in that I didn't need?
Yeah?
Again, I didn't bring in anything, so the hars question, they were kind of just using me as almost like a rub though. You know, if you had a piece of meat, you could just sort of rub it along my inner thigh, and then all of a sudden it was a delicious piece of meat.
And you know what, we were so desperate for food.
In there that if someone did have a salty thigh or you know, some sort of taste on their body, I one hundred percent would have rubbed meat through it. At one point, Adam Cooney did have cake on his body from one of the trials, and I found myself on both knees licking cake off his shorts at one point, and in the moment, that was totally normal.
There's a deleted scene that we need on the on the DVD. This actually leads me to my next question.
Oh yeah, you might be This might be.
One of the boldest choices, one of the biggest choices a man can ever make when they go on television. Do I wear speedos? And you decided to take that challenge on? I guess you know, as time went on and you got thin and everything seemed bigger, what was that decision make baking process like for you.
Well, so I did tospeedos just out of like convenience, like I didn't want to.
Have wet shorts.
Like wet board shorts that I was dealing with every day, chafing exactly like you know, the jungle is not a place.
For shape as all jungle people will stay.
But I'll take that one step further. I also made the decision to shower nud pretty early on in the hope that you know, respect would be paid in the camera center, that maybe the cameras would go down when I was showering Nerd. But when I went in, when I went into the control center and I was having cold showers, there was no warm water. So the toddra
had never looked worse, never looked smaller. And yeah, again, I was showing every single day and I walked into the control center and I saw that there were like four cameras on the shower, like they had every single angle of the shower where I was showering Nerds.
And I made the comment.
Of hey, guys, just so you know, the water was really really cold, and the laugh I received was far too loud to the point where it was like right, so you obviously saw it, and you were obviously all joking and laughing about the fact that it did look so unimpressive, And then one guy even got up and was like, yeah, you actually did it a favor because when we had to pixelate the rude bits, we only needed two pixels.
So you know what I was going to say, I'm going to have to you know, Brian Alex Maverdike has for some footage, but it turns out I need to.
I can save my money. I can save lots of my money. I don't. I don't need to see that at all. I can give it a miss.
No, no, you definitely die. But if you do get it, just make sure you look at it with a magnifying glass.
Alrighty, I'm buying it now. I want to ask you. We want to get real for a second. So what is the real reason that you went into this show without will because we know they would have come and asked you both to do it. Is something more to this that we as an audience would like to know as to what that decision making process was like for the both of you.
No, not really. We obviously chatted about it, where you know, we're best friends. The love we have between each other is a really beautiful, beautiful thing, and it was just an experience that Will really didn't want to do. For him personally, the idea of you know, getting filmed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and you know, living your life with really zero control was just something that he wasn't up for. But for me, yeah, I
wanted the challenge to take it on. So yeah, we had a really good conversation about it, and he's been incredibly supportive from the get go. You know, he's been the one back in Australia holding down the fort with the radio show. He's, you know, from all reports, did an incredible job with Brooke Bony. While I was there in the jungle.
I was listening and you've been replaced. No mother than kidding.
I always wanted to be okay, but not too good, and unfortunately Brook is a very talented woman.
I'll need to be good when I when I return.
Well, I think you will. I think your job safe. It's totally fine.
If she was found good, we'll made sure that she had some spicy food and then she sounded terrible on air. Was it fun just quietly to do something by yourself? Though, because you know, you've been in this duo for as long as I can remember. You know, this is a long companionship that you guys have had, you know, person Melbourne and all the other things that have happened. But you know, what about a little bit of satisfaction that this was something for you?
Ah, It's a really good question. Like I don't think it comes down to fun or anything like that, because I just think that every experience I've had in this entertainment industry, which has been alongside Will, has been doubled because we get to share it together. And I mean, you know, you know as well as anyone in the entertainment industry it can be a really tough beast as well, So when you go through a tough patch, we also get to share that, and I think that's a really
beautiful thing. Think the entertainment industry can be really lonely if you're just doing things by yourself, and that's certainly not something that I want to be doing. I really do want him by my side in every single thing.
That I do.
But you know, on the other side, I am someone who really struggles with self confidence and self worth and I only really feel confident about our radio show because
I'm doing it with him. It was actually a nice experience for me personally to be able to go into the jungle by myself and you know, tackle that lack of self confidence head on and come out of the experience and realize that, hey, you know you are worthy, and you know you people seem to like me in there, and you know, people have said some really beautiful things about watching me in there, and I guess that was really important for my personal developments and I hope that
that makes me a better partner for Will when we get back into you know, doing things together.
Yeah.
I think for a lot of people that do these shows that it is a huge part of self reflection, and you know, it makes you think about things a little bit differently, and it sounds surreal if you haven't done it. People be like, oh, you know, going on a reality show, it sounds like it's all about.
You, But it's actually a little bit of the opposite.
You know, you actually learn better ways to interact with people, and on a show like this as well, had to be more generous with the people around you to let them shine as well. And it must admit that was some of my favorite moments of you being in there, some of those sort of micro interviews that you were doing with the people that you lived with. There was some real generosity to get something decent out of that, and I mean that's years of you've been doing radio
and being very good at it. But I just thought, thank you, that was some amazing television. And they were like micro auditions for you know, doctor Chris Brown, who's going to leave soon.
Yeah, that's that's pretty that rumor what do you to replace Chris Brown?
In season moment, he.
Had the same conversation with Pete yesterday and everyone back up home saying that it could be Jimmy Rae. So I think we get the three of you back here to wrestle it out.
What do you reckon?
I don't mind it comes a bit of arm rest. Although I've lost six kilos since been in the jungle, they're absolutely twives at the moment, so I'd be very worried about one of my arms snapping.
I actually thought that you were going to win this series.
It's a real shock to me because when I you know, I thought straight away, I was like, you know, oh, yeah, it's great that he's in there, and then when I was watching, I was like, Oh, he's this is his He's going to win this. And then for you to come out at this point, and then to see the people that left behind there really have been these sort of more newbies to the industry, really and some bit of a surprise to see you guys all come out.
My question to you is this, do you think all the people that have come out, who have bigger personalities and more experience have a harder time to relax and just be themselves, which I guess this show we're seeing audiences really connect to the people that are you know, Waltz and all, you know, truthful to themselves. And then you've got someone at the height of that at Kerry
and Kennelly, you know, who couldn't take it down. You know, you've got other people like Pete Halleer who's been on our TV screens, you know, every weeknight for god knows how long. Do you think that has anything to do with the way in which these contestants have come out of the show and how well these people are still in there are doing.
It's a really good question. I personally didn't detect that at all, like I thought Pete and the you know, the bigger profiles were you know, just as open and
vulnerable and honest as the rest of us. Like I really can't speak enough about how close we all got through this experience, and like I had dinner with Pete last night because obviously he's he's still here, and you know, it's just so special that I can say that he's a friend now because you know, as a teenager, you know, when he was on Row Live, I've just like.
Idolized the guy.
And now I'm still sort of pinching myself that, you know, I've had this experience with him, and yeah, we we're genuinely mates. We live pretty close together, so you know, I look forward to, you know, continuing with these amazing relationships that I've made in the jungle. But yeah, no, I don't think it was any level of the high
profile people holding back at all. I actually think, I mean, the vote to save is a really interesting one, right, because maybe there was a level of people thinking that the high profile people were safer, you know what I mean. I'm not saying that about myself, by the way, I'm not trying to make excuses.
Come on, that's not what we want to hear, we want to hear excuses, come on, just grab on to anything.
But I get ie more referring to you know, Pete, maybe the Honey Badger who had a huge profile, even Dick O Dom. I mean these people have or Dick I doesn't have socials, but Dom's I think, got half a million Instagram followers, and there might be a level of people, yeah, like you know, I came into this competition with twelve thousand Instagram followers and I genuinely don't know how I managed to survive until the final six.
But I do think there may have been a level of people going, oh, they'll be fine.
I don't need to vote to save them. I don't know.
I mean who now, but no one knew who Nathan was.
Like in Australia, he's got like yeah, says, I don't know what the number is, so I'm going to say he's got a million and two a billion people following him on Instagram. But here in Australia you should have seen on social media people were like who is that guy? However, if you talk about him now to people that are watching that show, they're obsessed with.
Him, like yeah, this show, Yeah.
I'm not a celebrity at the moment, but I'm now on the show, and now I'm a celebrity.
I mean, it's a trickier name and it probably won't catch on that you look at Nathan. He's still in there.
If you would have asked me the first week, I wouldn't have put on sports bet. I wouldn't have been betting for him at all. I would have been going, oh, well, he's the first boot.
Yeah, that's very true. And I actually don't want to take anything away from just how amazing Nathan has been in there, because he's so entertaining, he's so funny, but he's also got this beautiful.
Warmth term as well.
Which it's actually been a beautiful journey with Nathan because initially it was very loud and he was telling very funny stories and he was the entertainer. But as the time went on, he really came into his own and felt comfortable being exactly who he is.
And I'm really happy that from this experience.
And I had conversations with him about it's only a couple of days ago when I was still in camp, and he was saying that it's nice that I feel like I can be myself and that's enough, and you know, people enjoy seeing that. I consider myself very, very lucky that whenever I'm in the UK, I've got someone to call and you.
Know, hang out with you only want you want someone to sleep. That's great, and be in love with him as well. I definitely saved his house. Probably we did a little bit more, but that's a different podcast. But I'm so interested about these headlines today. Everyone that comes out gets a headline attach them. And you're on Kyle and Jacko this morning, and they talked about salaries. Everyone's talking about how much money is in your bank account, which is very rude. You'd never ask anyone in any
other industry how much they're being paid. However, in this industry, apparently it's totally fine. Have you googled how much everyone's guests that you've been paid?
No? No, I actually haven't.
What are we talking here.
I've read a few different articles, and I know that these publications, you know, just do a guestimate and then maybe one contest a few years ago that might be of the same caliber, you know, got paid this much and that was leaked, so they try and sort of attribute it that way, but I thought it was it was quite wrong. I think I read thirty five thousand, which I don't want you to tell I don't want
you to tell me how much you got paid. But what do you think about all of this nonsense of us wanting to know how much you get paid and you know, whether any of it's even slightly correct.
It doesn't really bother me to be honest, Like, you know, it's a natural thing for people to want to speculate about, and yeah, it's not something that I want to share or I feel like I need to share, but like
to be honest, the speculation is totally fine. Although there are times where people have you know, I've done interviews where people have yes, you know, the ballpark of where they think I was paid, And more often than not, in those moments, I realized that maybe I understood myself a little bit experience, and I was like, wow, you think I should have been paid that much? Do you have a conversation with the manager.
No, I think.
That's more of a sign of the interviewer and how little they know about the end. I think if the person gets it right, they pretty much I mean, they're the ones that understand it right. They're the ones that probably know what they're talking about.
Yeah.
I am absolutely obsessed with you and have been for a very long time. I think you're an extremely funny person. You gave us so much in the job, including spidos, and I just can't wait to see what you do next. I'm looking forward to hearing you back at home here in Australia so I can hear the radio show in its proper format again. Forget Her and Yeah, I just want to say congratulations.
Oh, thank you so much, Ben, Thank you so much for the chat.