Corrie star Sue Cleaver hadn’t planned on discussing adoption on I’m A Celebrity

Coronation Street star Sue Cleaver said she had not intentionally spoken about her adoption on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! but she felt comfortable enough to share her life experiences with her fellow campmates.

The soap actress, 59, became the third celebrity to be eliminated from the ITV reality show on Monday, following in the footsteps of Loose Women star Charlene White and TV presenter Scarlette Douglas.

In her first interview since leaving the Australian camp, Cleaver told Good Morning Britain presenters Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley that living in the jungle was a “hard slog”.

She said: “You are literally looking at the sun and trying to figure out what time of day it is and where the sun is in the sky.

“You’ve lost all track of time, you’re sleep deprived, you don’t know what time you’re going to bed, you don’t know what time you’re getting up so it’s very disorientating and I don’t think you realise that when you watch the show.

“I mean I’ve watched the show from the beginning, I’ve been the best armchair critic there could be but until you’re actually in there, it’s hard, it’s a really hard slog.”

During her time on the show, Cleaver told her fellow campmates how a chance encounter at a theatre led to a “lucky” reconciliation with her birth mother.

She had explained that when she was in her early twenties she was at drama school and the Royal Exchange in Manchester were looking for “tiny parts” for the theatre production of Oedipus.

After walking in on the first day, an actor said: “Oh my god, she’s the absolute double of my wife when I met her,” before asking Cleaver for her date of birth.

Cleaver said he then asked where she was born before ringing his wife to say: “I’ve found her.”

The actress, who has played Eileen Grimshaw on Coronation Street since 2000, said that she had not planned on speaking to her campmates about her adoption.

“I have been quite private, I have never spoken about that out of respect for everyone but I felt so comfortable in there with those people and (sisters) Emma and Kate, my brother and my mum said say whatever you feel, what you’re happy to feel, so I did,” she said.

In the jungle, Cleaver said her birth mother had her at the age of 16 or 17, before adding that she grew up in a very loving family and her mother and birth mother have been for dinner and have kept in touch.