David Gest: The biggest star in the celebrity jungle
Last updated at 13:35pm on 11th November 2006
As he prepares to enter the Australian jungle for this year's series of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here, David Gest has been reminding the producers that he is by far the biggest star involved.
And after observing his ample curves on a Queensland beach, there are few prepared to contradict him.
Gest, the showbiz events organiser who is in the throes of a messy divorce from Liza Minnelli, is being paid £100,000 to take part in ITV's flagship reality show which begins on Monday.
That is substantially more than his fellow contestants, who include such Z-list luminaries Jason Donovan, Jan Leeming and Faith Brown. But if the production team expected gratitude, they were sorely disappointed.
Insiders say 53-year-old Gest has already proved the most difficult of the cast, making a string of demands.
The first was that he must fly first-class to Australia from his U.S. home at a cost of £7,000 (the others had to slum it in business class).
"He missed two flights and producers were practically in tears phoning him on his mobile asking him what was going on," said a source.
"He wouldn't speak to them, referring them instead to his security guard. Then, when he did answer, he told them, 'Look, I'm a star and I don't fly business-class'.
"They replied, 'You signed a contract with us and we'll sue you'. He responded, 'Listen, I'm already being sued by my wife. I don't give a damn'."
Gest had already set the mood for discussions with producers. The source went on: "David told us he was not going to put up with any "funny business" in Australia. He said to us, 'Listen, I don't know who any of these other celebrities are but they will do very well to remember that I am a big star'.
"He told us that if the others are going to talk to him, their comments should be brief and they mustn't talk over him. "He doesn't want any camera angles coming from under the chin as he says it makes him look fat in the face.
"The problem is, of course, that the cameras will be everywhere - but he won't know that until he gets out."
The source continued: 'David also made it plain that he would not be taking part in the first stunt where the celebrities will be bungee-jumping into the jungle.
'Incredibly, he says he is worried that the surgery he has had on his face, which includes injectable fillers, might move around with the acceleration of the jump.
'Of course, the producers have been so petrified that they have just said, "Yes, yes, yes" to all his demands because they are so worried that he is going to walk off the show. He's the big pull of the show - a very colourful character.'
Gest is - according to him anyway - well worth the money. Sources on set say that during the so-called 'friends and family' interviews which will appear on the show in its opening sequence, he has pledged to supply a 'catalogue of A-listers'.
'He promised Michael Jackson, and Liz Taylor and many more,' said one. Sadly, however, none of those has yet showed any interest in participating.
The producers have already made plans to fly out another contestant, Coronation Street actor Phil Middlemiss, in case Gest walks out - or if his many ailments make continuing the show impossible.
Before boarding the plane for Australia, Gest settled down in his ornate drawing room to answer an insurance questionnaire about his mental and physical well-being. It was, one suspects, an all-day job.
First there is his vertigo, nausea, hypertension, scalp tenderness, insomnia, dysphoria (a constant feeling of unease) and photosensitivity. Not to mention recurrent vomiting, anorexia and shingles.
Then, of course, there are the 11 different kinds of medication he must take to combat the constant pain he says he still suffers as a result of a series of alleged drunken assaults by his soon to be ex-wife.
Not forgetting the 80 regular injections he needs to combat the nagging throbbing in his head, plus the unresolved issue of his chronic phonophobia (a morbid fear of the sound of his own voice). Yes, really.
Suffice to say, Gest is not in peak condition as he prepares for three weeks of so-called 'tough' jungle living while surviving on meagre rations of bugs, kangaroo testicle and rice.
But as his bloody, and very costly, divorce battle rages on, he desperately needs the money.
Even so, those few friends Gest has left in showbiz are raising a quizzical eyebrow at his decision to submit himself to the privations of the celebrity camp.
Not least because he has become used - thanks to Miss Minnelli's millions - to something of a pampered lifestyle (he refuses to eat off anything other than bone china and has developed a taste for caviar) .
Gest's own eyebrows have long been rendered immobile thanks to his reported investment in countless catastrophic facelifts. Unkind wags have already dubbed him 'the scariest jungle creature ever'.
Even his fellow denizens of the celebrity camp are terrified at the prospect of rubbing shoulders with him.
Told that he would be a fellow-guest, Cherie Blair's half-sister, Lauren Booth, said yesterday: 'I can't believe he's going in. Is this for real? He's scarier than Michael Jackson. I'm terrified.
'I'm really scared to be around someone who's got tattooed eyebrows. He might melt in the jungle - there will be bits dropping off.'
Nonetheless, his associates told the Mail this week that Gest plans to use some of the cash to go under the knife again, to have unsightly scratch marks from another of Miss Minnelli's alleged attacks removed from his stomach.
Those scars, however, are the least of his problems.
Not only has a judge in Manhattan just thrown out his $10million spousal abuse claim against Miss Minnelli in the latest round of their court battle, but he now faces a gay sexual harassment case filed by his 35-year- old former male personal assistant.
Charles Beyer claims Gest, who has long been the subject of rumours that he is a closet homosexual, subjected him to a campaign of systematic sexual harassment.
Gest has in recent months countered by sanctioning the release of a series of stories to the American press about his sexual prowess with women. Few, it has to be said, are convinced.
Meanwhile, a judge has given 60-year-old Miss Minnelli leave to pursue her ex-husband through the courts for the millions she says he siphoned off during their marriage.
All of which must make the prospect of his stay in the Queensland rainforest seem suddenly more appealing.
It is, however, something of a comedown for Gest who - looking for all the world like a hastily and haphazardly compiled photofit - posed with his bride four years ago in front of 1,500 close friends at their New York wedding (Jackson was his best man and Elizabeth Taylor the maid of honour).
They parted after 16 tumultuous months and since then Gest has gone from toast of New York society to showbusiness pariah.
Once he could attract the likes of Britney Spears and rapper Snoop Dogg to the annual 'Christmas show' he staged in Madison Square Garden.
Now blackballed in Manhattan, he transferred last year's festive concert to Tennessee where the star of the proceedings was his friend, the 83-year-old former movie star Jane Russell. Perhaps unsurprisingly, only 500 of the 2,000 seats were sold.
Gest has been forced to sell his Upper East Side apartment, which had a room dedicated to his vast collection of memorabilia devoted to his estranged wife's mother Judy Garland.
Source:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
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