Cheryl Fergison reveals she has I'm A Celebrity 'game plan'

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EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison has revealed she wants to do I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and already has “a game plan”.

The actor – who played Walford’s Heather Trott from 2007 until 2012 - was diagnosed with womb cancer in 2015 and has been open about dealing with mental health struggles after her diagnosis. But she is now cancer-free and said if she was approached about doing the jungle show she would be in there “like a shot”.

Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, Fergison teased she had already worked out a way around the strict jungle rations, where celebs are on a basic diet of rice and beans unless they win something more substantial in the Bushtucker trials.

What, how, and why?

Fergison has already done Celebrity Big Brother but the Loose Women stars asked whether she would like to try another reality programme such as I’m A Celebrity.

“Oh, I'd be in there like a shot,” she replied. “I've got a game plan.

“Yeah, but the thing is, they all come out looking really super thin and that's amazing... There's no way I'm going without food in that jungle. No, I've got a game plan.”

Presenter Denise Welch pointed out that producers could check Fergison for “contraband”, but she insisted it wouldn't be an issue with the scheme she'd cooked up.

The actor refused to give much detail, but explained: “It's about… letting the general public know what I'm going to do. Going back to my teammates, having a little chat with Ant and Dec and doing my little thing.

“And then I will be having three course meals of what I want. And the others out there can have little rice and peas!”

“I would love to do the jungle,” she went on. “But I mean, I would love to do lots of different things. It's amazing.

"You know the world now, the world now is my oyster.”

What else did Cheryl Fergison say on Loose Women?

Fergison has only recently opened up about her cancer battle, and has told how friends such as the late Paul O’Grady and her EastEnders co-star Dame Barbara Windsor were a huge support for her. On one occasion, Windsor – who died in 2020 aged 83 having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014 – even paid her bills.

Fergison said on Loose Women: “I remember Babs going to me, ‘Come on, you’ve got to come round to my house.’ So I went round there and Barbara and Scott (Windsor’s husband Scott Mitchell) were there, and I went to the toilet and I'd explained everything that was going on.

“And I was going to have my operation very soon, and she came back, and Scott was there with the check book, and she went, ‘Right, so how much are your bills then? And how much are these gonna cost?’ And she literally wrote a check out to help me to pay my bills and my mortgage. I just remember like, just weeping.”

Fergison revealed why she has chosen to speak out about her cancer diagnosis. She said: “For me, it's about letting women know about what they should do with their bodies. We don't listen to ourselves enough. In general, people don't listen to themselves enough."

She added: “As women, we're so busy dealing with everybody else, we don't seem to have time for ourselves. So, basically when something happens to you, you need to take heed of it and you need to act on it. I think the thing is, if I hadn't acted on what was going on with me, I don't feel like I would have been here today.”

Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV1 & ITVX

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