How Richard Coles became the loveliest I’m a Celebrity contestant ever

The former vicar may have been a late arrival, but he has quickly emerged as a fan (and camp) favourite. Could the ITV show elevate Coles from ‘Bordering National Trinket’ status to fully fledged national treasure? asks Annabel Nugent

When this season of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! debuted earlier this month, there were concerns that this roster of stars was simply too nice for their own good. Where are the loathsome politicians? The brassy socialites? Between Oti Mabuse’s dancefloor charm, Alan Halsall’s affable soap-star quality and the gruff vulnerability of ex-boxer Barry McGuigan, it’s been pretty much happy families all the way through.

As if things couldn’t get any chummier – enter Reverend Richard Coles. Having left the world of pop stardom behind in his twenties (he was the keyboardist of the Communards with Jimmy Somerville), Coles has spent much of his adult life apparently pursuing another profession: World’s Nicest Man. Alongside that endeavour, of course, he was an Anglican vicar (he retired in 2022) and a broadcaster (notably on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live). The 62-year-old’s sweet-as-pie reputation was only fortified by his recent foray into the murder mystery genre. Coles writes the cosy kind, à la fellow nice guy Richard Osman.

What this season lacks in drama, it has made up for in some genuinely touching moments, a good deal of them involving Coles – all the more impressive given he was late to enter the camp. Take Tuesday’s episode during which he won over viewers with a simple answer to a certain question. Speaking to the Rev about her daughter’s premature birth, Mabuse became teary as she described the “hell” of seeing her baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. Putting her at ease, Coles recalled his own story of baptising a premature baby boy with a pipette of water. “We baptised him and he survived and now he’s a healthy young footballer, which is great!’ said the reverend.

It was what happened next, though, that really endeared viewers to Coles. Asked by Mabuse whether he might pray for her daughter, he responded: “I’ve already said a prayer for her actually.”

In turn, Coles opened up to the Strictly pro about his own wounds, namely the “massive hole” in his life left by his partner David, who died just days before Christmas in 2019 from liver disease – a result of his alcohol addiction. Granted, it has been a tough few years for Coles, whose beloved two dachshunds (Daisy and Pongo) died on the same day back in August, just months after the death of his mother Elizabeth.

“I miss him,” Coles told Mabuse of David. “And I want him to walk in the door. I had a dream that he walked in the door and he was just carrying a Co-op bag, just like he’d been shopping and I said to him, ‘I thought you were dead,’ and he said, ‘No I was just out shopping.’ I said, ‘It’s nice to see you, thanks for coming back,’ to which he said, ‘Oh I’m not staying, I met somebody else.’” This is often the way it goes with Coles – even his most tender admissions end with a laugh.

As was the case in his heart-to-heart with influencer GK Barry, during which the pair spoke about sexuality and the church. “I’ve never given it a moment’s twinge of anxiety over whether God thought [being gay] was alright or not,” he assured Barry, who, to make matters even more sentimental, had only just opened up about her own coming out earlier on in the series. “Also, I was not the first. Sometimes I look at documents from the early church, or the church of the middle ages and I just think… so gay.” There’s that Coles sense of humour. (Asked what his worst fear is, the reverend deadpanned: “Being fat on television.”)

Later in the Bush Telegraph, Barry vocalised the camp’s overwhelming good feeling towards their new bunkmate. “’I came into this jungle, maybe not knowing who I would gel with or who I would be close with in here and never in a million years if you told me that I would be getting on best with a reverend would I have believed you,” she said. “But, I think he might be my favourite person in here.”

Maura Higgins took a shine to Richard Coles (ITV)

It seems the same could be said for many of the celebrities. Certainly, fellow fan favourite Love Island’s Maura Higgins took a shine to the former vicar when the duo were thrown into the jungle together – and straight into a hilarious hijinx involving deceit and duplicity – two things the Rev is alarmingly good at. “Every year there’s the friendship no one expected and this year it’s Maura Higgins and reverend Richard Coles,” wrote one person on Twitter in an apt summary of the public consensus surrounding the pair.

Earlier this year, Coles completed a seven-month tour around the UK, called Borderline National Trinket. If things continue the way they’ve been going, he may well be leaving the jungle a fully-fledged national treasure. After all, Coles has already got a Strictly Come Dancing stint under his belt – and that’s half the battle.

New episodes of ‘I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!’ air on ITV1 and ITVX every night at 9pm.