Dean McCullough says I’m A Celeb producers cut his emotional stories of sobriety and grief
Dean McCullough says I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! failed to show the "real me" when he took part in the jungle reality show in 2024.
Dean McCullough claims the moments when he bared his soul about his "coming out story", his journey to sobriety and his grief over his late aunt were cut by I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! producers.
The BBC Radio 1 DJ believes some viewers may see him as a "two-dimensional" figure after he screamed his way through the gruesome Bushtucker Trials on the ITV jungle survival show in 2024.
Dean, 33, thinks the way the show was edited did not do him justice as there many moments in camp when he opened up to his fellow celebrities about his excessive drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic and coping with the first anniversary of his aunt's death.
Asked if there were moments from his series that he wished had aired, Dean exclusively told BANG Showbiz at the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025: "Loads of stuff. I spoke about my sobriety when I was in there, too, and they didn't air any of it.
"I was talking about my coming out story, my sobriety, and grief. I lost my aunt the year before, and it was her anniversary whilst I was in there.
"So I just feel they like they had no interest in showing a different side to me."
Quizzed on why he wished opening up about his personal battles made it into the show, Dean said: "Because people would have seen the real me, another side of me."
During the current series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! viewers have seen Jack Osbourne, 40, talk about his grief over losing his heavy metal icon dad Ozzy Osbourne this July, and Angry Ginge, 24, shedding tears over missing his family.
Dean has previously discussed how his alcohol abuse, which saw him drink two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka at the weekends during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And Dean - who is five years sober - said this was the main subject he wanted the millions of viewers to hear him talk about.
In his interview with BANG Showbiz, he said: "I would have loved to have talked about my sobriety because I think people would have had a different perspective on me."
However, Dean does not have an issue with the show's producers not airing his personal stories.
He said: "Not everything can make the show, but because I was doing the trials every day and people could see me joking about it with [presenters] Ant and Dec and using screaming and all of that to get through it, people might have thought that I was just like two-dimensional ...
"But there's plenty of time [to show real-self]. I'm not going anywhere."
