Olivia Attwood Has Revealed The Truth Behind Her Mysterious I’m A Celeb Exit

Just as her long-time fans expected, Love Island’s Olivia Attwood conquered a lot within the first 24 hours of starring on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! She was branded a VIP (Very Isolated Person), jumped out of a helicopter with Chris Moyles, slept on a deserted island with Boy George and presenter Scarlette Douglas, took part in the first Bushtucker Trial of the series, and eventually made her way into camp. But by the second episode, Attwood had become the first celebrity to exit the series. So why did Attwood leave the jungle?

When the news first broke on Nov. 7, a representative from ITV told Bustle that the Love Island star “needed to leave the jungle to undergo some medical checks” overnight, with the show’s medics advising that it wasn’t “safe for Olivia to return to camp as there needs to be a further investigation.”

In a later tell-all interview with the Daily Mail, Attwood revealed that after routine blood tests, she was found to be “dangerously anaemic,” in addition to low sodium and potassium levels, despite feeling “absolutely fine.” According to the NHS, if left untreated anaemia can increase your “risk of illness and infection” in addition to “developing complications that affect the heart and lungs.”

The Love Island star was subsequently taken to A&E, and was understandably worried about the outcome. “I didn’t know what to think,” she said. “I was wondering if I had picked up a virus, was I pregnant, all of these things were going through my head. It was absolutely frightening.” The tests were repeated in hospital, and came back normal. But because of the first set of results, producers feared that if she returned to camp her “levels might drop and it could be detrimental to my health and wellbeing,” Attwood explained. “They were not willing to authorise my return and therefore I wasn’t insured.”

Attwood was “absolutely devastated … heartbroken and gutted” with the news, adding that she felt the rumours of why she left were extremely misogynistic. “I mean, I saw on Twitter that I was pregnant, I’m not,” the reality star said, in addition to people theorising that she’d fainted or didn’t like sleeping outdoors. “There is an underlying misogynistic feel to the rhetoric.”

Speaking on ITV’s This Morning on Nov. 14, Attwood didn’t rule out returning for next year’s series. “It might be more of a logistical thing to make it work [but] I would love to because yeah, it was cut short,” she said. “[Tests are normal] thank God, I’m grateful that I’m healthy, but it makes it harder to accept. But it is what it is, there are worse things happening in the world,” Attwood concluded.