It has been revealed that Tory MP Matt Hancock bagged a cushy £320,000 for his time on I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!
The former Health Secretary appeared on screens across Great Britain for 30 days (720 hours) alongside subsequent Queen of the Jungle Jill Scott, Owen Warner, Mike Tindall and Boy George.
And documents published by the House of Commons detail how Matt received a ridiculously high payment from Lifted Entertainment, ITV, which was registered on January 11, 2023.
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The Mirror reports that at the time of appearing on the show, Hancock explained that a sum of his fee would be donated to several charities although a spokesperson was unable to confirm if all of the amounts would be donated.
They said that Hancock 'will be making a donation to St Nicholas Hospice in Suffolk and causes supporting dyslexia - including the British Dyslexia Association, off the back of his appearance', but refused to comment when asked where the rest of the money would be going.
But the 44-year-old claimed that the pay cheque was not what helped him decide to go onto the show, instead, he insisted that he thought 'long and hard' having initially declined an offer from ITV. Writing in The Sun, he said: "It wasn't the cheque that changed my mind. I will be making a donation to St Nicholas Hospice in Suffolk and causes supporting dyslexia off the back of my appearance.
"I will, of course, also declare the amount I receive from the show to Parliament to ensure complete transparency, as normal."
A spokesperson later confirmed that the amount donated to each charity would be discussed with Mr Hancock upon his arrival back into the UK. Despite initial backlash after entering the ITV programme, Hancock managed to sail through to the final and came third on the show after completing several Bushtucker Trials.
But while he may have landed in the final of the show, he didn't manage to win over all of the public and was subsequently booed by the audience after attending Seann Walsh's comedy gig. Hancock and his I'm A Celeb co-star Boy George attended Seann's gig at London's Soho Theatre with one enraged audience member branding him a 'w***er'.
In April 2022, Hancock apologised after the High Court ruled government policies on discharging patients from hospital into care homes at the onset of the pandemic were 'unlawful'. And in June 2021 he was forced to resign as Health secretary after CCTV footage surfaced of him embracing his aide Gina Coladangelo at a time when this would breach his own rules on physical contact. It also ended his 15-year marriage.
The former Health Secretary announced he would not stand for the Conservative Party in the next General Election – despite his team insisting that he had no intentions of turning his back on politics.
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