Eating a bull’s penis is so much harder than it looks – in every sense of the word.
So when you’re watching Coleen Rooney or NDubz’s Tulisa try to chow down on one during this year’s I’m A Celeb and you scoff, ‘I could do that’ – I guarantee you, you couldn’t.
From the single hair that stared back at me as I lifted it up to my lips and the stale clammy pink colour to the first unnerving crunch prompting an immediate gag reflex – it was just not humanly possible to eat.
Plus having to swallow it in sixty seconds while sitting on a plank suspended above a pool of 75 kilos of stinking rotten fish guts just adds a whole new gruesome element to the game.
And while you’re sitting jeering at the celebrities, hand reaching for another buttery biscuit, just know Bushtucker Trials are seriously no laughing matter for them.
When you’re watching Coleen Rooney or NDubz’s Tulisa try to chow down on one during this year’s I’m A Celeb and you scoff, ‘I could do that’ – I guarantee you, you couldn’t
From the single hair that stared back at me as I lifted it up to my lips and the stale clammy pink colour to the first unnerving crunch prompting an immediate gag reflex – it was not possible
I might be stating the obvious, but they are actually really, really unpleasant experiences.
The whole trial ordeal begins way before actually sitting in front of the bull’s penis, goggles on and timer set.
A rickety old van with black-out windows collects you from Jungle camp to transport you to the mysterious trial location which is anywhere between a three to 10-minute drive away.
This is complete guesswork from me as the experience is so unnervingly disorientating, like sitting in a black box and being shaken for several minutes.
Producers do this so as not to burst the immersive bubble of I’m A Celebrity for contestants.
This can be done by speaking to someone from the outside world, catching a glimpse of the time (there are no clocks in the Jungle) or hearing the radio.
All of these possibilities are eliminated when you sit in the back of a pitch-black van alone.
And it’s safe to say, that you emerge feeling suitably weird, blinking in the Australian sunlight not knowing which way is up and even less prepared to face a challenge titled: Davey Jones’s Cocker.
The task in hand: eat boiled bull’s penis without holding your nose in under sixty seconds to win a star (one meal for the campmates)
The forfeit was a heavy tangle of slimy fish guts being poured on your head from a bucket before being dunked into a pool of them
The task in hand: eat boiled bull’s penis without holding your nose in under sixty seconds to win a star (one meal for the campmates).
The forfeit was a heavy tangle of slimy fish guts being poured on your head from a bucket before being dunked into a pool of them.
Sounds easy enough and I confidently opened the treasure chest – the theme was Pirates, hence the name Davey Jones – and grabbed the aneamic-looking cocktail sausage on a stick.
Slightly unnerved by the massive fully formed bull’s penis on display which coiled around the eating pieces but decided to try and look past it despite its overwhelming size.
The part that grossed me out here was the strange excess layers of skin on parts of it – I hadn’t seen the hair yet.
Carrying the gruesome canapé in hand, I climbed the stairs to the awaiting plank which sat above 75kg of pale bulbous fish guts that floated in the water below.
I had seen others try to tackle it by biting off small chunks at a time but a trial organiser told me moments before the only possible chance I had of completing the task was by putting it down in one.
Crack was the first sound like I’d bitten a chopped-off finger.
It just went from bad to worse as I continued my attempt at chewing but my teeth kept sliding off the tough exterior and any time I did pierce the membrane, there was resistance and it would feel like I had bitten into soft bone marrow.
Plus the rest of it becomes a sort of torn-up pulp in your mouth which prompts the violent feeling of wanting to spit it out.
But the hardest part is swallowing it down, not physically, but the mental block of it being a literal bull’s penis in your mouth is not something you can get over in thirty seconds.
Faced with the impossible task and with nausea creeping up my throat as my stomach did somersaults from the rising smell of the fish guts, I decided to grab the silver bucket – present at every eating trial for the celebrities to be sick into.
It came as a light relief as the heap of fish guts slid over my head and then with the pull of a lever, thunk, I was dropped into the rotten pool.
Surfacing goggle-less and disgusted that I had accidentally opened my mouth on the fall down, I fought off the long tangles of innards that were clinging to me.
Failed. But I was comforted by the thought that the visceral gag reflex, known only by those who have tried to eat an animal’s penis, has beaten even the strongest of contestants.
Last year, former heavyweight boxing champion, Tony Bellew, was left sick in the corner after trying to tackle a pig penis smoothie.
Joined by the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, it reportedly took the pair three hours to film the challenge because they were unable to keep the bestial mixture down.
Recovering on a plastic chair as producers poured clean water over me and handed me soft towels, I have never been happier that I wasn’t returning to a hot and sweaty camp covered in fish guts.
While it has taken me three hot showers and half a bottle of soap to get most of the stale fish smell off me, celebrities have to try to do the same with a tiny bottle of eco-soap and the trickle of cool water from the Jungle shower.
Around 600 kilos of fish guts of animal insides, Offal, are used throughout a single series.
Last year, former heavyweight boxing champion, Tony Bellew, was left sick in the corner after trying to tackle a pig penis smoothie
Joined by the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, it reportedly took the pair three hours to film the challenge because they were unable to keep the bestial mixture down
I don’t want to even begin to imagine what campmates smell like after the leftover fish guts have time to ruminate on them.
But I found out that many stop wearing deodorant because they find it doesn’t make a difference…
Anyway, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, eating an animal penis is hard.
Celebrities now have my complete sympathy and each time an eating trial comes on the TV in this year’s series, I’ll be in the kitchen making a cup of tea.
I do not want to revisit that experience, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.