PARTICIPANTS on Channel 4’s The Simpler Life were meant to have spent last summer exchanging the modern world for an off-grid Amish-style farm in Devon.
But in reality producers laid on a vacuum cleaner and a hairdryer, and according to one contestant, some of those taking part smoked drugs.
Contestant Hazel Power said: “The people in the farmhouse had access to hairdryers and within the first few months the property was in such a state that production had to give them a Hoover.
“They were even smoking joints in the night – I went to production and told them, but they didn’t find anything in their search and the smoking carried on until it had run out.”
Fellow participants Andrew and Gary Talbot-New said luxuries they were supposed to have forfeited had been smuggled into the 40-acre farm, where the ‘community’ were expected to work together under the tutelage of an Amish family.
Other issues included the division of food between the 24 contestants.
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One household allegedly hoarded more than their fair share of grub after their numbers were reduced when team-mates quit the show.
She said: “The contestants living in the farmhouse ate all of their food early on, so they kept coming to our house to ask for food.
“Meanwhile, Victoria and Joseph were left with supplies for six people after Keely, Frankie and their kids left.
“They hid it in the upstairs of their cottage rather than sharing it with the community.”
Andrew said: “We were told we were going to an established farm but when we got there it was a larder with some food in it, four goats, three sheep, and 30 chickens which weren’t laying.
“I’d seen more animals in a petting zoo.”
Channel 4 said that when producers were told of cannabis use it was “immediately investigated and dealt with”.
The hairdryer was provided on doctor’s orders for an asthmatic contributor and the vacuum cleaner was for “health and safety reasons”, it added.
Purple reign of Romeoti
DANCING Queen Oti Mabuse has hit a purple patch as she hosts her first primetime show.
Her new ITV dating series Romeo & Duet will see singletons serenade a potential love match from a balcony.
Oti said: “It was my first time hosting in front of a live studio audience.
“Reading links and trying to do the whole thing, concentrating to not look like you’re super-stressed – I loved everything about it.”
- Watch Oti’s hosting debut on Saturday at 7pm on ITV.
Fearne’s TV work dries up
FEARNE Cotton was once on Celebrity Juice, The Xtra Factor and (though we’ve probably forgotten) the second series of Love Island.
But in conversation with Will Young on her Happy Place podcast, she says she rarely gets any job offers these days.
Worse still she’s often mistaken for Holly Willoughby.
She said: “I’ve talked endlessly on different platforms about the fact I’ve been sacked from I don’t know how many TV shows. Nobody asks me to do telly any more, I don’t get asked.
“A couple of Christmases ago when I was doing TOTP, the lighting guy – because I’ve worked with him since I was 15 – went, do you still do telly?
“What do you do these days?
“I’m not confident enough to be on camera today. The person I’m presenting with is way more popular than me.”
