HE was the first political figure to camp in the I’m A Celebrity jungle.
But former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik has been unable to use his diplomatic skills to heal his own 14-year-long reality show feud.
Lembit, 59, appeared in the 2010 series alongside the likes of Stacey Solomon, Shaun Ryder, Alison Hammond and Bond girl Britt Ekland.
But it was a well-spoken veteran actor that gave Lembit the biggest headache after his stint in the Australian wilderness.
In an exclusive chat with The Sun on behalf of Instant Casinos, Lembit said: “The ones that annoyed me the most were some of the celebrities, like Nigel Havers, who walked out because he couldn’t take the heat and spent the last decade rubbishing me.
“We’ve not been on each other’s Christmas lists since 2010.
“Yeah, Nigel Havers was two-faced. He pretended to be my friend. I only realised what he really thought when I saw the show after I came out. He considered me to be mad, but frankly, I was making his tea for him.
“I was his tea boy. And the gratitude I got shown was to him for him to stab me in the back when he came out. That’s regrettable, and I would point out that I outlasted him in the jungle, and as far as I’m concerned, I win.
“Nigel, you keep trying, but you can never take that away from me, Nigel. You walked out of the stage.”
In 2018 Nigel, 72, joked on Good Morning Britain that he would have killed Lembit had he not quit the show.
The former Coronation Street star said: “If I’d stayed there I would have killed somebody, his name was Lembit Opik and I was just about to murder him.”
Nigel was the first to leave, walking away after refusing to do a task that would have given him a mild electric shock.
He said at the time: “I’m not up for it, I don’t do electric shocks so I’m leaving. I cannot waste another second of my life.”
Lembit was the second star to be eliminated from camp after ex-WAG Sheryl Gascoigne.
Despite the early exit, Lembit relished his time on the programme.
“I don’t regret going to the jungle for a second,” he said. “And I’ll tell you that even if I had been re-elected in 2010, I would have still gone in. I would have still gone in as a member of Parliament because it’s the crown jewels of reality TV.
“Whatever people say about it, it is the big one. And I’m honoured to have been in a select number of hundreds of people who’ve gone in there. In terms of my experience, when I came out, I realised I’d been presented as the camp servant.
“But I don’t regret it at all. I’ve made some great friends to this day. Linford Christie, Sheryl Gascoigne, Shaun Ryder from Happy Mondays. They’re just great friends. Dom Jolly, who I spoke to recently. So I’ve had a great experience because I had nothing to lose.
“But I think maybe one thing I would have done differently, I think I would have been a little bit more bushy in the jungle instead of just accepting the endless drivel from proper celebrities. I was happy with the critters.”