Dec Donnelly has revealed that he told I'm A Celebrity bosses he wouldn't work with another male host as Ant McPartlin took a break from the spotlight.
After his drink driving charge, Ant was absent from the hit ITV show in 2018, with Holly Willoughby stepping in to present coverage from Australia alongside Dec.
And in Ant and Dec's new tell-all book Once Upon A Tyne, which lifts the lid on the lads' 30 years in showbiz, Dec has revealed he made a request to producers over Ant's replacement as a number of big names were linked to the jungle job.
"At first there was a lot of speculation about who it would be, with people saying Stephen Mulhern or Phillip Schofield should get the job.
"But right from the very beginning there was no way I was going to host the show with another male.
"I didn't want to have another man standing on the same side Ant stood.
"I didn't want it to appear that another guy was stepping in to take Ant's place because they weren't and because no one ever could."
Ant's eventual replacement Holly proved really popular with viewers and Dec was also very impressed, adding: "Holly did a superb job and was fantastic to work with and once we knew Ant wasn't going to be a part of that series, she was top of my list to host alongside me."
Ant returned to I'm Celebrity last year to crown Jacqueline Jossa as Queen of the Jungle but this year's show will be very different, with the location switched to Wales due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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