Nigel Farage has hit back at ITV programs boss Kevin Lygo for “rude, one-handed gestures” and “making life quite unpleasant for me” during his time on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!.
Farage, who came third over the weekend as the ITV juggernaut concluded, used his GB News show last night to issue a stern warning to Lygo, appearing to reference Lygo’s mocking him during the ITV Palooza event late last month.
“It seems whilst I was in [I’m a Celebrity], one or two people up at the top of ITV were doing their best to make life quite unpleasant for me,” said Farage, who became the second controversial politician to enter the jungle in the past two years following Matt Hancock’s 2022 turn.
“So I would suggest, Mr Lygo, that I am prepared to ignore your rude, one-handed gestures, the pathetic attempts by some of your staff to stitch me up. I’m prepared to forget all of it if we can call a truce. But if you really, really want to go to war with me, I don’t think it will do ITV’s share price an awful lot of good.”
At the snazzy Palooza event, Lygo is reported to have been on stage with a sign language interpreter, joking: “I don’t know any sign language, I just know the sign for Nigel Farage,” before following his remark with the “rude, one handed gesture.” He went on to make several more jokes, according to reports, including saying that Hancock’s inclusion last year had been the “second most complained about TV event of last year, we can do better than that.”
On GB News last night, Farage warned Lygo that “the last person who went to war with me was Dame Alison Rose from NatWest,” a reference to the bank’s former CEO who was forced to resign after breaking client confidentiality in relation to the closure of Farage’s bank account.
He said his issue is “not with the production team or anyone involved with [I’m a Celebrity]” but the people in ITV’s upper echelons.
Lygo has had a busy week. On Wednesday, the long-awaited report into former This Morning host Phillip Schofield was published with several recommendations for how ITV deals with on-air talent, although ITV was cleared of having a “toxic culture” on the daytime show or being aware of Schofield’s affair with a much younger colleague.
I’m a Celebrity had a disappointing finale ratings-wise with just 6.5M tuning in, a fall of a whopping 4M viewers from the previous year’s finale, when Hancock also finished third. The show remains one of ITV’s biggest of the year with audiences.
Farage, meanwhile, is being primed for yet another political comeback.
Deadline has contacted ITV for comment on the Farage remarks.
