First Dates’ Fred Sirieix reveals he is searching for a man to matchmake I’m A Celeb co-star Josie Gibson with – after their cooking feud in camp

Josie Gibson has been put in the hands of professionals when it comes to finding love as her former I’m a Celebrity co-star and First Dates’ Maitre’d Fred Sirieix says he is on the search to find her a man.

Speaking after he left the jungle on last night’s show, becoming the third celebrity to lose the public’s vote, Fred said: ‘We talked a lot about Josie’s love life and I am on the search for a man for her.’

As the host of the Channel 4 match-making show, First Dates, Fred makes a living out of pairing hopeful singles together and suggested single mother Josie, 38, should appear on the show.

He said: ‘There are two ways to go. We can go for First Dates because we are going to be filming again.

‘But I think I need to fast forward this and I need to think about my friends, because she does not want to be with a celebrity, understandably.

‘I am thinking about my friends and who I could match her with.’

Josie’s last known relationship was with the father of her child, Terry Bond, whom she broke up with four months after five-year-old Reggie was born the pair had known each other since they were 17 and reconnected briefly during the pandemic.

Fred continued: ‘She is very easygoing, her son is her priority, and she is very big with her work I know exactly the type of man she likes but I need to think who I am going to introduce her to.

‘She is busy and she does not have time to waste because it is either Reggie or it is work but also, I had a long conversation with her, as a mum it was very difficult for her.

‘There was this very strong New Zealand guy and she said, ‘Oh you New Zealand guys are big and strong,’ and I was thinking, she likes a man to be a man, not a skinny one like me, she likes a strong one.’

It comes after Fred spoke out on his dispute with Josie after viewers accused him of ‘misogyny’. 

The TV star became the third campmate to be voted off the show on Tuesday’s episode after being embroiled in a ‘sexism’ row when the role of camp cook was passed on from him to Josie, with viewers claiming he was ‘controlling’ the This Morning host when she attempted to make dinner. 

While Fred had attempted to defend his in his post-show interview with Ant and Dec, he has now admitted he had to clear the air with his mother, who had scolded him over his ‘unacceptable’ behaviour. 

Speaking on Wednesday’s This Morning, he confessed: ‘I spoke to my mum and she said ‘Frederick’ – she calls me that when she’s upset – ‘what did you do with Josie? Why are you telling her what to do?’

‘I got a telling off from my mum she said it’s unacceptable and she didn’t want me to do it again… she was mad!’

Fred continued: ‘In all fairness, the meals Josie cooked were good. 

‘She could cook the meal on the day but I was concerned with how she would use and recycle the bones, vegetables and peels so we could make stock and improve the day after.’ 

As well as his clashes with Josie, Fred was also caught up in an infamous row with Nella Rose, since dubbed ‘Dadgate.’  

The pair’s relationship became strained after he remarked ‘I could be your dad’ during a conversation about their age difference, which promoted a negative reaction from Nella, who lost her father in 2020.

While discussing Fred’s comment, Nella explained to the food connoisseur: ‘To me, I don’t care how you said it, to me, that’s disrespectful, and I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to be around you. 

‘I only allow people to disrespect me once. Don’t bring up my dead parent, are you stupid? ‘You know I could be your dad right?’ You’re a weirdo.’

While there was tension in camp for a few days, the pair ultimately made up and moved on from the incident, but viewers have continued to bring up the scrap. 

Reflecting on the row, Fred said on This Morning: ‘It was a misunderstanding, the jungle is a pressure cooker.’ 

He went on to hit out at the amount of backlash Nella has received, saying: ‘I was very surprised of the hate for Nella.

‘It’s totally wrong and unfair and it’s not in my name. Nella is a lovely girl. Things happen, you move on and I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’

Nella, who was interviewed moments before Fred on the ITV daytime show, had echoed his sentiments as she gave her side of the story. 

She explained: ‘It was a big fat misunderstanding.

‘We’ve gone over it, everything is cool, everything is blessed, I don’t know why everyone’s still crying about it.’ 

‘In the Jungle, everything is intensified. That subject [parents] is very triggering for me because its a fresh wound but everything in the jungle is intense.

‘In the jungle the little bit of drama that happens is you EastEnders, I stirred the pot to make things fun, it’s just who I am.’ 

Fred also spoke out about his intense training for Jungle life, telling hosts Emma Willis and Rylan: ‘It was a test, a challenge and it was something I wanted to do for a while. I had to try it.’ 

‘I had nightmares for three months, dreaming about bugs and waking up and seeing them on my pillow and this is how I prepared, I trained for six months.’ 

Revealing that campmates needed to be in good health, he went on: ‘What people don’t see on television is it’s a very big camp. To get wood and water you have to go all the way down and up. 

‘You are living on rice and beans and you have no calories, you are walking very slowly, it’s hard.’ 

At this point Emma was quick to jump in as she called Fred up on admitting he’d known he was heading into the Jungle six months in advance. 

Looking on in shock, Emma – who co-hosts The World Cook with Fred – shouted out: ‘You’ve just said you knew six months in advance but I saw you three weeks before the Jungle and you said nothing!’  

Looking sheepish, Fred threw his hands up as he explained: ‘I was told categorically to not tell a soul and if you tell me something, you can trust me. 

‘I’m reliable and ITV said you cannot tell anybody and I didn’t! Only my family, that’s all

‘Then the list of [campmate] names were leaked… and it wasn’t me!’ 

Fred went on to discuss his reunion with Fruitcake, who met him on the Jungle bridge when he was kicked out of camp. 

Fruitcake – who is known by her nickname because she wants to keep her legal name private – flew out to Australia to greet her fiancé of three years. 

‘[Seeing her] was the best thing,’ Fred gushed. ‘I walked on the bridge very slowly because I wanted to enjoy experience, to embrace her and give her a kiss. 

‘Just to tell her I love you. It was the most beautiful thing.’ 

While Fred has been enjoying spending some quality time with Fruitcake in their five-star hotel post-Jungle, he revealed that he isn’t leaving everything behind in camp. 

He explained: ‘My experience in the Jungle was bliss… For the first time in my life I just lived in the moment and enjoyed what was in front of me and in the present.

‘I’m 24/7, 365, very intense. But in there I was very relaxed. I want to just find a piece of time when I come back home to see how I can take part of the Jungle inside my life, more peace and serenity.’ 

While Fred may have felt at peace in the Jungle, viewers could pick up on the growing tension between him and Josie when they clashed heads over cooking. 

During his exit interview on Tuesday’s I’m A Celeb, Fred touched on his dramas with Josie as he told Ant and Dec: ‘She’s just making it up as she goes along. So I think there’s a lot at stake with the food. 

‘And it’s not just what you’re cooking at the moment which of course is going to be good, because the produce is incredible, it is what you can do the next day with the leftovers of the bones.’ 

He continued: ‘You really need the calories, and you’ve got to find them whenever you can. I think we missed out on quiet a few meals [by not recycling ingredients],’ he added.

Viewers had been seeing less manners and more ‘misogyny’ in Fred in recent episodes after his behaviour towards his female co-stars left fans branding him ‘unbearable’. 

When asked why he didn’t get involved as much with Sam Thompson and Nick Pickard’s cooking, he said they were a ‘dream’ and there was ‘no need’ for him to do so.

Fred, also a trained chef, had relentlessly criticised single mother Josie’s cooking abilities and during Monday night’s episode he told hosts Ant and Dec at a trial: ‘There is no method, there is no technique.

‘She’s just making it up as she goes along. If she just let me take her through it step-by-step clearly, we would be ok.’

Viewers were quick to hit back at Fred and wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: ‘Fred Sirieix is controlling and misogynistic. He may be a trained chef but it doesn’t mean he has to make everyone feel less than.’ 

Josie has been praised online for her calm response when she said: ‘You’ve just got to give me the reins my love, I know it’s hard.’

Initially, Nella and Josie were tasked with washing the pots up after Fred cooked the campmates rice and beans.

But the camp descended into chaos when the furious First Dates star threw the already washed pots onto the ground complaining they were ‘unclean’ and sent the pair back.

I’m A Celeb airs nightly at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX