Comedian Mel Buttle has shocked her fellow camp mates on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here by quitting the show on its fourth day.

The comedian, who is best known for co-hosting The Great Australian Bake Off, declared she was a celebrity and she needed to get out of the jungle Australian Rain Forrest.

Buttle told the other contestants on the show that she’d signed up for the reality project hoping it would help her overcome her long held phobia of snakes. Rather than combating her fears, being out in the open, where snakes had been spotted near the campsite, had sent her mind racing and taken a rapid toll on her mental health.

Weeping as she shared her decision with the other contestants, Buttle found support from her fellow celebrities as she declared she could not continue.

Speaking later to Ten Play, Buttle said from the moment Real Housewives of Melbourne star Pettifleur shared that she thought she’d seen a dangerous snake, she was not able to cope.

“Once it became obvious to me that it was a real snake and what kind of snake it was I was on red alert. I had to keep my guard up, I wasn’t going to sleep,” Buttle said.

“From then, my mind just would not let the idea go that I was going to wake up covered in 16 snakes. I just couldn’t get over my phobia at that point once it became real and there was one quite close to where we sleep.”

The comedian is the first person to drop out of this year’s program. In previous previous seasons sports stars Bernard Tomic and Anthony Mundine withdrew from the program.

During the show Buttle was a fan favourite, especially for her devotion to 90s pop star Toni Pearen.

The series continues on Channel Ten.

OIP Staff

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