I’m A Celebrity star Richard Madeley has endured a tough break in leaving Gwrych Castle following news of his hospitalisation.
But despite reports claiming show bosses fear a “mass walk-out”, it seems there may be a way back for Richard.
Nonetheless, although he has said he is “gutted” to be out of I’m A Celebrity, the GMB host also knows the safety of campmates must be prioritised.
Richard, 65, has a reputation with some observers as being close to the embodiment of Alan Partridge.
But his sense of proportion has no doubt helped him survive several challenging moments in his lifetime.
Among those is the story related to what he believes lead to him to be “badly beaten” as a child by his dad.
What has I’m A Celebrity star Richard Madeley said about his father?
Richard previously addressed his relationship with his late dad during a discussion about smacking children.
He said: “I was badly beaten as a child by my dad.
“When I look back to my childhood, I got the cane several times. And I was seriously beaten.”
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Reflecting on canings he received at school, Richard added: “The scars lasted six months and I am still angry about it.”
Richard’s memories were enough for him to resolve not to treat his own children with Judy Finnigan – son Jack and daughter Chloe – the same way.
“I swore I would never lay a finger on my kids,” Richard said.
“And I didn’t think I did. But I asked them and they both have thin memories of me smacking them on the bottom once or twice and I must have blanked it out.”
Richard’s ‘family secrets’
Richard has also previously said that he thinks the impact of traumatic events going back generations were behind his beatings.
In his 2008 book Fathers & Sons, Richard revealed why he forgave his after learning more about his family’s past.
That’s because the lives of his grandfather Geoffrey, father Christopher, his own and his son Jack’s are all connected.
“Four generations strung together like beads on the twisting double helix of their shared DNA,” he wrote.
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What happened to Richard’s grandfather and father?
Richard’s grandfather endured a difficult life which saw him left behind by his family when they emigrated to Canada.
Geoffrey’s uncle paid for the family’s big move. But the price was that the nephew stayed behind and worked as a farmhand.
Richard believes Geoffrey suffered trauma after his abandonment. This lead to a cold relationship with Christopher. And this dislocation to worse through family grief for the death of Christopher’s brother as a child from pneumonia.
I believe my father was plainly over-compensating.
Consequently, Christopher recalled only one awkward moment of physical affection ever with his father.
But when he became a father himself, to Richard, Christopher doted on his son to an “exorbitant” degree.
Richard reflected: “I believe my father was plainly over-compensating. He was making it transparently clear to everyone – most of all, to himself – that the relationship with his son would not be anything like the one his father had with him.”
I’m A Celebrity star Richard became his dad’s ‘whipping boy’
Richard continued: “He was going to establish the difference right here and now. He was going to have a demonstrative, loving relationship with his son come hell or high water.
“Even if it meant, initially, exaggerating or even acting the role of a devoted father. He would not visit the sins of the father on me. But he did, later.”
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Richard concluded, sadly, that his family’s pain continued to pile on top of them.
He surmised: “My father’s anger and pain over his own past made him turn me, quite literally, into his whipping boy.”
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