Ade Adepitan to Become First Wheelchair User on I'm a Celebrity

Ade Adepitan, 53, will become the first wheelchair user to appear on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, which returns to ITV1 on Sunday at 6pm.

The Paralympic medallist and TV presenter has already drawn a hostile reaction online. Critics have accused him of "cheating" because the jungle camp has been adapted for him, while others claim his casting is "box-ticking". Adepitan rejects both charges.

"If you spend enough time in the TV industry, at some point you're going to end up in the jungle, eating animal genitalia, with Ant and Dec watching you!" he said.

Who is Ade Adepitan?

Born in Lagos, Adepitan contracted polio as an infant and has used a wheelchair for most of his life. He became an accomplished wheelchair basketball player before moving into television, covering sport, the natural world and the climate crisis. His appearance on Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters brought him to the attention of the show's producers.

What has changed for the show?

Producers flew Adepitan to the camp site to advise on disability access. Changing terrain, narrow pathways and transfers out of his chair were all identified as problems. He will use different wheelchairs, crutches and other mobility aids during the series.

He is aware some viewers will frame this as an advantage. His answer is blunt: having a disability, he says, is like starting a marathon five miles behind everyone else.

The jungle, he argues, is not so different from navigating London in a wheelchair. "There's a few more trees, a few more leeches, but it's that kind of thinking and problem solving that we, as people with disabilities, have to do all our lives."

What does this change for disabled viewers?

Adepitan has felt the weight of visibility since childhood. Arriving at school in callipers meant "I had all eyeballs on me". He said: "Even as a five, six-year-old child, I recognised that. I've carried that weight all my life knowing that I have to, like, change people's perspectives."

He later met Ian Dury of the Blockheads, who shared his disability, and describes the encounter as a revelation. "It's almost like society is ashamed of us and it's almost brainwashed us into being ashamed of ourselves as well," he said.

He does not claim to represent every disabled person, which he calls impossible. But he believes the appearance will spark a conversation on disability worth any discomfort the trials bring.

On fear, sharks and training

Asked what scares him most in the trials, he refused to answer. "Hell no, I'm not telling you my fears! Why am I going to tell you my fears? I tell you my fears, you write them down."

He dismisses the idea that an athletic background prepares anyone for the Bushtucker Trials. "Mate … who has trained to be chucked in a boxful of rats or eat a cow's udder?" He says he trained to shoot basketball hoops, "not to have a snake wrapped around my nether regions. While Ant and Dec do a countdown!"

His shark experience has limits too: "It's not like I'm gonna jump into the ocean and be like: 'Oi, shark … that's your pint mate!'"

A lifetime of barriers

Adepitan recounts black cabs refusing him rides, broken lifts trapping him in stations, and one court case in which a driver lost his job for such a refusal. In earlier years he hid around corners and sent able-bodied friends to hail taxis on his behalf.

His message is that neither the wheelchair nor his body disables him; the barriers society chooses do. "When things go wrong in society, when things get tougher, we are one of those groups that are going to be the scapegoats," he said.

He frames the show as a way to pay forward the sacrifices of his Nigerian parents, who took three jobs each while studying and raised the family in a damp council house. His final hope is simple: "To make my parents proud if they're watching from up there."