‘You can’t train to be chucked in a box full of rats!’ Ade Adepitan on fear, facing down sharks and being I’m a Celeb’s first wheelchair user

‘If you spend enough time in the TV industry, at some point you’re going to end up in the jungle, eating animal genitalia, with Ant and Dec watching you!”

Paralympic medallist and TV presenter Ade Adepitan is in the building, and he’s ready to cause a stir. The 53-year-old is set to become the first wheelchair user on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!. His participation has already ignited a social media maelstrom, drawing ableist ire – from accusations of “cheating” due to the jungle being adapted for him to outright crowing that a disabled person should not be on a primetime show as it is ostensibly “box-ticking”.

A wheelchair user for most of his life, Adepitan has keenly felt the weight of responsibility of being “seen” in a disabling world ever since he acquired his disability. Born in Lagos, he contracted polio as an infant; an accomplished wheelchair basketball player, he has since moved into TV presenting, largely covering sport as well as the natural world and the climate crisis. Taking part in Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters brought him to the attention of I’m a Celebrity’s producers.

To adapt the show for Adepitan, he was flown out to look at the camp site and advise the producers on disability access. Changing types of terrain, small pathways and transferring out of his chair to move around the site were all potential problems. His access needs mean he will use different wheelchairs, crutches and other mobility aides. A niggle at the back of his mind has been that this would be seen as an “advantage”, yet having a disability, he says, is like starting a race – or a marathon – five miles behind anyone else.

Being in the jungle is not so different to moving around his home city of London, or using the tube as a wheelchair user: “There’s a few more trees, a few more leeches, but it’s that kind of thinking and problem solving that we, as people with disabilities, have to do all our lives.” In fact, London has been at the heart of the problems he has encountered: from broken lifts trapping him in train stations to black cabs refusing him a ride. But Adepitan refuses to give in to the despair of a world built from barriers. He cycles from acerbically funny to a kind of charismatic vulnerability when detailing his experiences as a disabled man of colour.

Setting foot in school as a child in callipers meant “I had all eyeballs on me”. The weight of preconceptions had to be dispelled: “Even as a five, six-year-old child, I recognised that. I’ve carried that weight all my life knowing that I have to, like, change people’s perspectives.” And yes, he has felt like an outsider as a result. There are people with extreme views on what it means to be disabled and taking part in a reality show, he notes with a smile. Had his childhood self seen someone like him in the mainstream, Adepitan wonders what that would have done for his self-esteem. After all, later on being introduced to Ian Dury from the Blockheads, someone with the same disability, was a revelation. There was such power in seeing someone in a similar situation refusing to be hidden away.

“It’s almost like society is ashamed of us and it’s almost brainwashed us into being ashamed of ourselves as well,” he says. But regardless of the issues or fears he will face on I’m a Celebrity, it will be worth the effort to spark a conversation on disability, he says.

Asking Adepitan what he is most scared of in the infamous trials gets a spectacularly comical response: “Hell no, I’m not telling you my fears! Why am I going to tell you my fears? I tell you my fears, you write them down.” He assumes an “airs and graces” type of voice: “And the people from I’m a Celebrity [will be] like: ‘Ohh, noted, this is what Ade doesn’t like!’”

His previous experience as a contestant on Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters doesn’t necessarily mean he’s “good” with sharks, either: “It’s not like I’m gonna jump into the ocean and be like: ‘Oi, shark … that’s your pint mate! I know a few of your mates in the Bahamas. Fist bump?’”

It’s been suggested that a background as an athlete will stand him in good stead for the show – something he roundly rejects. “Mate … who has trained to be chucked in a boxful of rats or eat a cow’s udder?” He describes himself as having the skills to shoot basketball hoops, “not to have a snake wrapped around my nether regions. While Ant and Dec do a countdown!”

He impersonates the Bushtucker Trials, mimicking the hosts: “Come on Ade, you can do this! 10 seconds, 10 seconds! Eat it! Shove it up there, do that!”

As a disabled person who has been in the public eye for decades, Adepitan is acutely aware of progress around perception and care – and there are tiny signs of it actually happening. “Being disabled is hard. And the nonsensical thing about it is, constantly – because I’m old and I’ve been around for a long time, and we’ve watched and seen how the Paralympics have evolved and there’s more people with disabilities with [a] profile – I’m always told: ‘Haven’t you come a long way? Things have moved on so much!’”

Back in the day, taxi drivers wouldn’t even stop for him. “I would have to hide behind the corner, and dangle my good old-fashioned two-legged friends in front as bait!” There’s something of the Del Boy about him as he details his routine to flag down a cab: “They would hail it down then I would appear from nowhere and leap into the back! That was the only way I could get a taxi.” So yes, says Adepitan, some things have gradually changed.

But like so many, Adepitan has a few grim tales of being left stranded by drivers, regardless of what the law may state. It’s an experience that happens “regularly”, he says, often from misconceptions around the size of, or just not wanting to “take” his wheelchair in their vehicle. Another case saw him in court, where a driver eventually lost his job for such a refusal; Adepitan spoke out about the experience on an Instagram Reel, with many other people noting the exact same experience.

What Adepitan wants people to understand is that it is not his wheelchair that makes him disabled, nor a body chronically seen as a “problem” in need of correction. It is the physical and emotional barriers a society has decided to choose that are the disablement. And it can turn just as quickly: “When things go wrong in society, when things get tougher, we are one of those groups that are going to be the scapegoats.”

And just as quickly, we’re back to a different serious conversation. He is keen to “pay it forward”, as a salute to the sacrifices made by his parents. They were both from Nigeria, where he lived before coming to the UK.

“They gave up everything to bring me and my sister over here. They never went on holidays. They did, like, three jobs each, as well as studying. And we lived in a council house with damp everywhere, but everything they did was for us.” Their sacrifices, he says, are something that can be shown as having been “worth it”.

The point, says Adepitan, is that taking part in a show such as I’m a Celebrity is bigger than just himself. It’s not a desire to represent every disabled person – that is impossible, of course – but this will be something of a landmark first. He smiles, almost wistfully, expressing his big hope: “To make my parents proud if they’re watching from up there.”

I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! starts on Sunday at 6pm on ITV1.