For three intense weeks, twelve celebrities exist in complete isolation within a tiny patch of Australian jungle, their world confined to just 25 square metres. This is the carefully crafted illusion of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, where contestants eat, sleep and endure Bushtucker Trials with minimal contact from the outside world.
The Hidden Production City
What viewers see on screen represents a mere two percent of the actual I'm A Celebrity site. A mere eight-minute drive from the cramped celebrity camp, up a chalk track through dense foliage, lies a sprawling industrial operation that would shatter the illusion of wilderness isolation.
Our exclusive pictures reveal a quarry-like clearing teeming with activity. Shipping containers store equipment, portacabins serve as toilets, and rental vehicles buzz around a large central dining marquee surrounded by smaller editing suites. Surprisingly, cows graze calmly above this organised chaos, a stark contrast to the celebrities surviving on rice and beans less than a mile away.
The production employs up to 700 staff members, mostly local Australians from the nearby New South Wales town of Murwillumbah, just ten minutes drive away. As one camp insider revealed: 'ITV doesn't fly everyone over, they save on costs and hire locally.'
Military-Style Security and Operations
Access to the I'm A Celebrity site is heavily guarded, with a single entrance reached by a winding lane through mountainous jungle terrain. Guest passes are essential for movement anywhere on the main site and must be returned upon exit.
Production staff dressed in full jungle gear - shorts, Akubra hats and sunglasses - communicate via crackling walkie-talkies as they navigate the vast site in golf carts. The operation runs 24 hours a day, with one worker describing it as 'a beast that never sleeps.'
Longtime hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly arrive at 3am in white Toyotas to watch final edits from their well-appointed cabins before being driven to their presentation studio, a highrise platform built on stilts almost directly above the hidden camp.
Preserving the Illusion
Three flimsy bridges connect through the trees towards the camp, but only Ant and Dec are permitted to use the metal walkways, which wobble significantly and can hold just five people simultaneously. A drawbridge now separates the camp from these bridges, installed after celebrity chef Anthony Worrel-Thompson led what became known as 'the great camp rebellion' in 2003 over sausage shortages.
A previously unknown hidden wall wraps around the camp perimeter, serving dual purposes of keeping animals out while reinforcing the celebrities' sense of confinement. Dozens of robotic and fixed cameras are camouflaged into trees or disguised as jungle paraphernalia, filming constantly, while camera crews hide inside large fake boulders.
When travelling to trials, celebrities are transported in buses with blacked-out windows to maintain disorientation. The radio remains switched off, and crew members cover their watches to prevent time awareness. Contestants have minimal clothing options - just six swimming outfits, six pairs of underwear, or a combination thereof.
Life in camp proves deliberately challenging, with uncomfortable beds leading many celebrities to manage just three or four hours sleep nightly, often fashioning ear plugs from toilet roll. As the camp insider summarised: 'Watching the show, you would just never know how much work went into creating it. It's such an enormous operation, it's like a duck paddling underwater.'
