EXCLUSIVE: “I get very protective of him”: Julia Morris spills on her friendship with I’m A Celeb co-host Dr Chris Brown

It’s a whole new jungle on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! this year.

Celebs will find themselves covered with terrifying Aussie creepy-crawlies instead of terrifying African ones, and facing their fear of heights in front of a spectacular Australian backdrop rather than a spectacular African one.

But one thing hasn’t changed: Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris will be fronting the show once again.

“My sweetie!” Julia, 52, says of her co-host. “Any man that can stand alongside someone going through menopause and still be kind is a pretty good guy. I adore him.”

Chris, who knows Julia so well that he picked her as The Kitten on The Masked Singer after “one word”, believes their close bond is due to the long hours they’ve spent together over the years.

He says in South Africa they’ d get up at 3.30am and work right through to 6pm.

“We spend so much time together – also, time together at your most vulnerable, when you’re missing family or friends back home and you’re tired and run down,” the 42-year-old explains. “So you have to know that person’s on your side and supporting you.”

It was back in February 2015 that comedian Julia and vet Chris teamed up to host the first season of the hit reality show. Julia says her relationship with Chris has changed a lot since that time, when she would shamelessly flirt with him.

“I think it’s easy to flirt with someone who you don’t know very well,” she says. “And so as I started to get to know him, I’m just like, ‘This is ridiculous.’ What started out as a joke ran its course. Year two we did more of a competitive-y kind of vibe. Then, by year three, the friendship really bedded down.”

Julia says she feels “totally like an older sister” towards Chris.

“Sometimes the naughty mags will put some stupid thing on the cover about him – ‘I’m in love’ or ‘I’m getting married’,” she says. “Oh, my God – I rise up like a machine! I get very protective of him.

“He really is very private, whereas I’m open like a pizza carton.”

Chris has seen Julia’s protective side emerge when they’ve been interviewed together.

“If they ask me anything personal or that in some way Julia doesn’t agree with, as I’m about to craft a diplomatic, very respectful answer, Julia will just come firing in over the top and it’s like, ‘Whoa! OK. There we go.’ ”

As well as the personal stories, Chris and Julia have had to deal with rumours over the years that they haven’t actually left the country for I’m A Celebrity – that the show has always been shot in the Blue Mountains, 60km west of Sydney.

Chris jokes it should’ve been shot in the Blue Mountains this time around, “just to honour all those conspiracy theories out there”.

In fact, I’m A Celebrity is being filmed near Murwillumbah in far northern NSW, on the site where the UK has filmed its version of the show for years.

Chris describes it as having I’m A Celebrity “heritage”.

“This is the very camp where Peter Andre and Jordan [the singer and glamour model would later marry] hooked up. I think this is the very camp where Peter revealed his tanning regime was rubbing Coca-Cola into his skin,” Chris explains. “You can’t buy that.”

He explains that the location is “more jungly, denser and more humid and hotter” than the African jungle. And possibly more dangerous.

“We’ve got bigger issues in terms of paralysis ticks, leeches, as well as snakes and spiders and all that,” he says.

For Julia, one thing that got her excited when she heard I’m A Celebrity would shoot in Australia was the possibility that her husband Dan and daughters Ruby and Sophie could come to visit her on set.

“It’s a long time away from the family,” she says of the extended filming schedule.

However, after they’d all spent months together in lockdown in Melbourne, Julia’s daughters weren’t quite as excited about the possibility as she was!

“After not being at school all year, the kids are just like, ‘Er… ‘ I don’t know if they’ll want to be in a house waiting for me to finish work,” she says with a laugh.

The Murwillumbah location does have its attractions, though. It’s less than an hour’s drive from Byron Bay, which Chris declares now has “more celebrities than Bondi”.

“I can’t wait for the rumours of who’s going into the Australian jungle, given who’s been spotted nearby,” Chris says. “Zac Efron [the US actor and singer] clearly is asking for it.”

Could one of the Hemsworth brothers be a candidate for the jungle?

“I’ll be realistic, I can’t see Chris Hemsworth joining,” Chris says. “He’s got a little bit on. But there are a few others around Byron we might be able to nab.”

Chris says the pandemic has made it easier to cast for the show.

“It’s actually very easy to grab people and convince them to spend a couple of weeks with us – they’re not doing anything else,” he says.

Julia feels no matter who goes in, they’ll be more mentally tough.

“I can’t help but wonder if they might just be a whisper more resilient after the year they’ve had,” she says.