ITV I'm A Celeb's Danny Jones almost didn't make it into jungle after panic at home

Danny Jones, the bookies favourite to win I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, nearly missed his trip into the jungle after misplacing his passport just before he was supposed to leave.

In the midst of moving house, the McFly frontman thought his passport got packed away in a box and in a frantic scramble overturned everything, even before heading to the recording studio as time was ticking away.

Jones, who only committed to the show shortly before his departure from Britain, recounted: "Leaving the house was one of the most stressful mornings of my life."

Explaining his last-minute involvement with the show, he said: "Because one: I'm leaving. I didn't know I was doing the show, right? Until, like, pretty last minute. My wife has to move house. I was meant to be, like, I've done this. I've done the 21st anniversary, we've been touring for two years straight," reports the Mirror.

Reflecting on an already eventful year, he added: "I've just got The Voice. It was a great year, and I'm just gonna move house. I'm just gonna chill and have Christmas. But no, there were different plans! So leaving the house was quite stressful. And here's the double reason why it was stressful: I couldn't find my passport in the morning. I was literally going, 'Darling, I've got to go to the airport now and I can't find my passport! '".

In a rush to leave, Jones also mentioned: "So I was literally like, it was such a quick goodbye, I felt like I've not really said goodbye. But in a way, I look at that as a bit of a positive, because it wasn't so like, you know, long-winded and kind of like, I don't know when I'm going to see him again."

Explaining the situation, he said: "It was like, 'I've got to go check the car at the studio, check this place, you know. I've got to find my passport. So that's why you can see that shocking picture of me turning up to the airport looking dishevelled."

Bursting into laughter, he said: "Well, here's the thing: I already packed it in my bag! I was already prepped, man. So there's me, like I went to the drawer where I thought it was, wasn't there. Panicked, and obviously, because we're moving house, I'm emptying every single box that we've packed over the past few weeks."

"And I went to the studio, because I parked my car there, and I was like, it's not in my car. I had to go back home, and then as I checked my bag that I was going to the airport with, it was sat there staring at me. I said to my wife, 'Darling, it's fine. I found it. I must have packed it last week and forgot about it. I'm so organised I forgot about it."

Danny has been a member of the pop-rock boyband McFly since the early 2000s, alongside Tom Fletcher, Harry Judd, and Dougie Poynter, who won I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in 2011.

Earlier this year, ITV viewers saw him win The Masked Singer, and he later shared a heartwarming video of the moment his six year old son Cooper discovered that 'Piranha', a character he had enjoyed watching on screen, was actually his father.

An emotional Danny spoke about the difficulty of parting from his family for a long stint, with tears in his eyes: "I couldn't tell him. It was a little bit like The Masked Singer. As I was leaving, I was like, 'Daddy's going away for a few weeks'. But then when it got announced, I'm sure he would find out now, but I said to him, 'You're gonna come on an adventure with Mummy and be a good boy'. I've never been away for this long."

"We normally have a two-week thing on it where if it's any more than two weeks, you've got to come and say hi. I mean, FaceTime does obviously help, but that's taken, my whole communication has been taken away. And it's not just while you're in the jungle, it's in this lockdown bit that I'm in now for a week as well. So in its entirety, it will be, you know, just over a month."

"It is hard, and you've got time with yourself, and I'm a big thinker - a big over-thinker - so it's a real challenge. But I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I'm definitely, 100 per cent will be so overexcited and emotional when I see the people that I love the most walking towards me. I think that would be a special moment, and I'm not scared to show my emotions either."

Admitting potential camp struggles, Danny revealed his unease with trials and unfamiliar faces: Despite decades as a pop icon, he finds solace in band performances rather than braving it solo in camp.

He elaborated: "It's a scary place to be. Not only are you limited to what you eat, I'm in there with a load of strangers. I'm vulnerable. And because I can't hide behind... see, everything I've done in the past, I feel like I'm protected in, you know, if I've got my guitar, or if I'm singing, I've always got something to kind of not hide behind, but to protect me."

"I'm more comfortable singing than I am talking. I'm more comfortable playing in front of O2 Arena than doing an interview. It's just the way I'm wired. So I'm going to be vulnerable, and that scared me. But I'm just gonna do my best and I don't know, maybe I'll have some switch that goes on, like survival mode, and I've got to do it. But maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be an absolute wimp. We'll see."

Danny is currently the bookies' favourite to win, and it's not hard to see why when speaking to him. He's easy to chat with, part of a massively popular band, and has already clinched two ITV primetime series this year, including his roles as a coach on The Voice and The Masked Singer.

Discussing the prospect of becoming king of the jungle and winning I'm A Celebrity, he said: "I can't even fathom what it would feel like to win the jungle. I think why it would probably mean so much is that, even though I may look super confident, we have insecurities, and we're fragile as human beings. I've never been out there as just myself in such a vulnerable state."

"And I think just having the approval of the British public and people that... oh, you actually do like me or whatever, it's kind of nice to know that, and I think that would be just the cherry on top. And if I won it, I'd definitely, 100 percent get a brand new tattoo of the crown and the stick somewhere on my body to represent it. Absolutely would."

He followed up by saying: "I've got The Masked Singer under my belt, I've got The Voice under my belt - I'm going for the Treble. I'm going for the Pep Guardiola! And I know that I will try my best. All you can do is your best, and I'm going to do my very best to impress you guys, impress my son and impress my campmates."

I'm A Celebrity returns to screens on Sunday November 17 at 9pm on ITV1.