John Burton Race has been inadvertently in training for I’m A Celebrity for many years. From an early age he was drawn towards daredevil stunts including jumping off a high diving board at an Olympic sized swimming pool, and has eaten a scorpion in one go.
But despite his taste for adventure, there are aspects of the jungle which he’s not looking forward to such as eating al fresco and sleeping on a hard bunk without the luxury of linen sheets and a big, comfy bed.

John says: “When I was a little boy living in Thailand I used to keep snakes so I’m not frightened of snakes. Spiders I’m alright with, so long as they’re not identifiable black widow ones or tarantulas because they’re hairy, they’re big and they hurt.
“I don’t like scorpions but that’s because when I was a little boy I was stung by one. And when I was very little, according to my mother, I ate one. It tried to bite me and I bashed it and then ate it. I think I was only four or five.

Of his adventures as a child he says: “When I was kid I was living in Thailand, I kept looking at this diving board and it was Olympic size, one of those concrete ones not a springboard, a proper plinth, and I‘ll always remember I kept looking up thinking ‘God I’d like to go up there,’ and my mother said ‘don’t you even think about going up there John’.

Even just going up it I was bit scared - it’s a long way down when you’re a kid, and you’re going up the ladder, and you’re a bit scared but if you get to the top plinth and you’re completely terrified, you’ve got to jump haven’t you? And the buzz of going down and then hitting the water and not knowing how to jump properly, I hit the bottom of the swimming pool and chipped my tooth.”

The chef and star of Britain’s Best Dish says he’s excited by the challenge of the jungle and can’t wait to get there. But he’s more worried about how he’ll get on with the other celebrities rather than doing the Bushtucker Trials or surviving off meagre rations.

He says: “I think I’m a team player but I don’t really suffer fools gladly so I’m not sure how I’m going to get on and how my personality will mix with everyone else. I’m going to give it my best shot and I’m going to try and be accepted. I have a little bit of a short fuse sometimes and I’ve got a very short tolerance level to boredom.”

On being asked to take part in the show John says: “I’m really, really excited. Do you know what? Even though I’m my age I think that I want to cram as much as I possibly can into my life and so if an opportunity like this turns up first of all I feel quite privileged to be asked, I really do, because there are plenty of people out there who would love that opportunity and secondly I find it exciting - the whole idea of not knowing what to expect.

“I don’t watch much television, in fact I’ve only seen little bits of the show. I watched somebody trying to swim with rats, which was pretty off-putting and I watched someone eating a kangaroo’s cock but I haven’t actually seen an entire show from the start to finish ever.”

John was born in Singapore and travelled extensively with his parents as a child but despite this he has never been to Australia.

“It’s about doing something that’s completely different and off the wall and quite exciting. I’ve spent my whole life living out of suitcases, travelling all over the world following my parents. But I’ve never been to Australia so I’m looking forward to that.

“Also it’s a bit of a challenge for me because all blokes want to be brave don’t they? ‘I’m not frightened of anything, bring it on yeah! I can climb that, I can do this, walk across a tight rope, jump out of an airplane, swim across this. Crocodiles mate? I eat those for breakfast!’

“But when it comes down to it and its right in front of you, when you’re in front of something that’s creepy crawly or squirmy or a rat or a snake how am I going to react? I haven’t got a clue. So it’s a bit of a challenge for me as well.”
John has recently given up cigarettes and also describes himself as ‘a bit of a recluse’ with few friends and therefore he worries about how he will cope in a team situation.
“I’ve got very few friends because I’m a bit of an introverted type of person.”
He admits to being ‘a bit rude’ and says he has even been thrown out of friends’ dinner parties in the past after getting drunk.
He says: “I’m a bit of a recluse really. I like, for example, to go walking, I like to go fishing but I like to do it on my own and I don’t want anyone to talk. And I don’t really like to listen to boring stuff.

“I went to a dinner party with my ex-wife and they were all talking about the colour of their kitchens and the car they drove and it’s all boring, so that was boring and then I’d get drunk and obnoxious and usually get chucked out or something. I’ve been chucked out of more dinner parties than you’ve had hot dinners.”

John also admits to having a bad temper. He says the worst thing he has ever done in the kitchen is ‘throw pans, chuck a plate of food at someone’.

He adds: “I’m not very good at suffering princesses and princes, people who think they‘re so important.

“I live for food and wine. I love wine and my temper is even shorter now because I’ve given up smoking.

John has a large brood of children: Eve, 20, Olivia, 18, Martha, 16, Eliza, 12, Charles, 10, Amelia, 8, and Pip, 2, and although he’s not yet told them about his participation in the show, he says they love reality television.

“My kids are completely addicted to all these things. They’ll love it.”
John, who also starred in the shows French Leave and Return of The Chef, says he pretends to be tougher than he really is. But despite his appetite for adventure he’s scared of heights and rats and has never been camping.
“I don’t do camping. I don’t do flies in my food. I don’t sit on wet grass. I don’t like the idea of tents and all that nonsense. I don’t even do al fresco eating because flies fall in my food. I particularly don’t do barbecues because everyone burns the food. So that’s going to be a bit of a challenge.

“I like my creature comforts you know. I like a big bed with nice cold linen sheets and all that sort of stuff. It’s a bit wussy isn’t it? And the idea of going camping? Well forget it. I’m not interested.”

He adds: “I don’t really like heights. I don’t do heights. I don’t even do the big wheel at the circus, you know that thing that goes round and round. Whoa, no. What’s the point of risking your life… a joke isn’t it? I always look at people doing this bungee jumping and think, ‘oh I wish someone would cut the rope’. Why risk your life doing things like that? It’s ridiculous.”

Despite his career as a chef which has seen him awarded three Michelin stars, he has no desire to cook in the jungle. However he says he will step in if it looks like his team mates are going to ruin the dinner.

“I don’t want to cook. But if they [his team mates] really want me to, you know, I’d rather do that and make sure it’s cooked than eat raw chicken and get ill. I must admit I’m not going to get up and get excited about cooking a load of boiled rice and beans. The beans are a bit of protein and well, flatulence, and then the rice is a filler, starch, carbohydrate and to make that tasty when you’ve got nothing to make it tasty, I don’t really want to get involved in that.”

But he has a warning for his fellow celebs if he gets hungry: “I have to have access to food or I’m even more obnoxious. So how do I cope with being hungry? “I’ve never been hungry. How will I cope? I won’t and woe betide anyone near me.”

On what the other celebrities could be like he says: “Someone said they always get some sort of big-boobed bird in a bikini, which is ok. If the body’s nice that’s great. But if she opens her mouth and she’s so flaming thick, well you know, I like strong women.”