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I'm a Celebrity: Janice exclusive

She's the foghorn-voiced former supermodel who has endured trial after trial and picked endless arguments in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

But Janice Dickinson's troublemaking in the Australian jungle is nothing compared to the chaos she caused as a girl.

Boy-mad Janice was a prolific shoplifter who was sent to a strict convent where the nuns tried, and failed, to tame her wild ways. And that's according to her big sister and her best friend.

In an exclusive interview with the Mirror, Janice's childhood pal Eric Salter reveals how she caused uproar at the strict Little Flower Catholic School - after wreaking havoc in the sleepy seaside town of Hollywood, Florida, in the 1960s.

Eric says: "Putting her in with those kids and nuns was like putting a tiger in with baby chickens. She gave those nuns hell. Her mum sent her there to turn over a new leaf but it didn't work.

"We'd go shoplifting all the time - Janice was a great shoplifter. She used to steal fashion magazines and if she got caught she would blame me, saying I made her do it.

"Janice wasn't stunning at the time but she had boyfriends. We hung around with a lot of troubled kids and she'd always go for the hottest.

"We lived across the street from each other when we were 12. We'd stay up smoking pot and just being crazy, listening to Led Zeppelin. Those times were like hippy heaven for us."

Janice, now a 52-year-old mum-of-two - she has a son Nathan, 20, and a 13-year-old daughter, Savannah - has made no secret of her colourful past.

Her early homelife was hellish. She knew her late father was abusing her older sister Alexis and claims she endured beatings for refusing his perverted advances.

Later, after achieving fame as a model, Janice became trapped in a downward spiral of drugs, plastic surgery, anorexia and alcoholism.

Little wonder that even Eric, now an antiques dealer living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says his old pal turned out to be a tricky customer.

He sympathises with her fellow jungle celebs, who include PR guru Lynne Franks, Apprentice superbitch Katie Hopkins and chef John Burton Race - who Janice faced in a Bushtucker trial to eat crocodile penis, among other jungle horrors.

Eric says: "As much as I care for her, I know Janice would be a nightmare to live with full-time. She's so demanding that people get tired of her, so I'm not sure how she'll get on with the rest of the group.

"She's always in high-energy mode and can say cruel things. She is really just like an aggressive gay man.

"Janice was always headstrong and would break the rules. She once told me that a fashion designer had asked her not to mess up the dress she was wearing on a shoot - so she jumped in a fountain in it."

Eric was shocked when his high-maintenance friend agreed to take part in ITV's back-to-basics reality show. But he believes she desperately needs the attention - and the money.

"Janice never saved any money from her modelling," he says. "So I think part of the reason she is doing this is because she needs to. She has a lot of commitments. Plus, she just loves the limelight.

"I could see Janice taking the title as Queen of the Jungle. She could last the distance.

The only problem is how long she can last until her next Botox injection. I've seen her when she needs one and things can get very wrinkly."

In her quest for everlasting beauty, three-times married Janice - who claims to have bedded Sly Stallone, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty and Bruce Willis - has had eye-bags removed, cheek implants, boob jobs and collagen implants. She is such a beauty addict that her older sister is stunned she chose to do a no-frills stint in the jungle.

Alexis, 57, says: "My sister is a total diva and she can survive anywhere. People will see that. Even if they dump a load of slime on her, she'll find a way to use it as a beauty treatment.

"I think the crocodiles should beware if Janice is about - not the other way around!"

She says cruel things and is hell to live with.

Source:Daily Mirror