ITV's I'm a Celebrity's Maura Higgins savage Pete Wicks dig amid romance rumours

Former Love Island star Maura Higgins has opened up about her and Pete Wicks as she touched down in Australia to appear on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.

Maura is set to arrive into the camp this week, days after ten celebrities made their way into the jungle at the start of the ITV reality show's 2024 series on Sunday (November 17).

But the reality star's trip Down Under to take part in the Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly-fronted programme comes amid fervent speculation she is dating Strictly COme Dancing star Pete Wicks.

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Asked if she had been on a date with Pete, she replied coyly to the Mirror: "I mean, I've been on a date with many people." But she is keen to play the relationship firmly down. "I'm not [dating]. Where have you heard that? I date but I'm very much single," she says. "Honestly, I just think the interest in my dating life is so boring. People go on dates. Like everyone goes on dates, but then it suddenly becomes that I am in a relationship with this person, or that person."

Maura is jetting straight into Australia following a boozy, blow-out in Las Vegas, and she is clearly feeling the after-effects. "Honestly, I'm not good....I feel like I'm in The Hangover, I've even got the shakes," she laughed. "I have no clue what time it is, I don't know where I am. In fact, I've done the opposite of preparing myself [for the jungle]. I've tried not to think about it, because when I think about it, I get so much anxiety."

Maura will become only the second-ever Love Islander after Olivia Attwood to appear on the ITV show tomorrow ...and is determined to fly the flag for the show's former contestants. "I just don't want to let people down, because everyone's been DMing me, saying 'Oh my God, I hope you're doing the show.'" she said. "I don't want to back out of the trials and be the biggest wimp in the camp."

She told how her mum was left flabbergasted when she told her she'd signed up for the jungle. "She nearly died. She went: 'Maura, how are you going to do that?' She is baffled as I'm more of an indoor girl...I like my hotels. I've never slept outside," she says. She refused to camp even at festivals. "I'm always like, 'no, get me back to a hotel,'" she laughed

When Maura burst onto our screens in 2019, it's fair to say she ruffled her fair share of feathers in the Love Island villa. So what can we expect when she enters the camp alongside Rev Richard Coles as one of the late arrivals.

"It's been five years and I think I've matured, but I still have a potty mouth," she explains. "I'm still the same kind of girl but I'm not going to go in and annihilate anyone. However, if someone gets on my nerves, I'm not really one to hold it in. I do speak my mind. If someone patronized me, I get really irritated. Like, that's one thing that really drives me mad."