Entertainment
I’m a Celebrity star Tulisa opens up about ‘anxiety attack off camera’-Brooke Ivey Johnson-Entertainment – Metro
‘Okay, get the heart rate down. Get the heart rate down.’
Tulisa has opened up about her struggle with her anxietyITV/Shutterstock)
Tulisa Contostavlos has spoken out about her experience on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! after mysteriously vanishing from Australia.
The N-Dubz star, who was the third contestant eliminated, opened up about the huge amounts of anxiety she was suffering while on the show.
The former X Factor judge, 36, then suddenly deleted all posts from her Instagram page, confusing fans and leading many to speculate that she’d left on bad terms.
After Tulisa also failed to appear on spin-off show, I’m A Celebrity… Unpacked, the following day, it emerged that she had actually flown home.
Now, in a new interview with The Mirror, she’s revealed that she was ‘forced to flee’ the show after suffering huge amounts of anxiety.
She said: ‘Some of the things you didn’t see, I had night terrors for the first four days. I was waking up out of my sleep, and I was having anxiety attacks.’
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
She went on to say that viewers may have been unaware of how much she was going through because of her ability to keep a cool exterior when struggling. She said that while she may have looked tough, she was also crying herself to sleep many nights.
The star continued, explaining that while she did cry on camera at one point, she had a panic attack off camera in the smoking area during which she was attempting to maintain her composure.
She said: ‘I was like, “Okay, get the heart rate down. Get the heart rate down.” I wanted to leave that day. I was like, ‘I can’t do this but it’s not what I came here for.”‘
Fans were shocked when Tulisa was eliminated (Picture: ITV/Lorraine)
While she clarified that there were plenty of great moments on the show and that she loved being there with the people, it’s clear that her decision to fly home was one motivated by selfcare.
Tulisa previously spoke about he moments after her exit, before she left Australia, and the fear she had of facing public scrutiny.
She told The Guardian: ‘I came out, still followed by cameras, all tits and teeth, and it wasn’t until I was on my own that I felt this introvert-overload.
‘I was hyperventilating, crying. It was too much.’
Tulisa flew home shortly after her elimination (Picture: James Gourley/ITV/Shutterstock)
She went on: ‘Is this about a fear I have of being in the spotlight? Or is the person I’ve become just not the kind of person that wants fame any more?’
Speaking of choosing to go in the jungle, she told the publication: ‘I had a lot of fear surrounding exposure, and I got to the point where I thought: “Am I holding on to this fear because of what people have done to me in the past? Am I letting other people change my perception of what my career is and could be?” I didn’t want to feel that way any more.’
This comes after Tulisa reassured fans over her absence from I’m A Celebrity, after she deleted traces of the show from her social media.
She told her followers: ‘I’m just doing a video to clear a couple of things up, just so you know, when I came out of the jungle, I felt fine first of all and then that evening, my friends went to bed, I was on my Instagram, just trying to have a nice little casual scroll at some funny stuff or the stuff that I like to watch, and I was getting a lot of attention, a lot of bombarding, in all the most positive ways.
But because it’s been a bit of a while for me, I can get overwhelmed quite easily, and I just started to feel a little bit overwhelmed.
‘I thought, do you know what, I really need to take a bit of time for me and just chill, and this is all feeling a little bit much at the moment.’
She explained that she wanted to ‘archive’ the posts that were published onher feed while she was in the jungle, and would make her own reels of her favourite memories ‘when the time is right’, stating: ‘I haven’t been doing my Instagram, the way that everything is posted and all the random stuff is not the way I do my Insta.’
She went on: ‘I just wanted to clear up the reasons why I did that and just be honest, it’s okay to feel a bit overwhelmed.
‘I’ve been out of the spotlight for a long time and I’m still trying to overcome those things.’
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
Entertainment – MetroRead More