[Red Moon]

Brian Paddick's bid for quid: I was a celebrity... get out your chequebooks

During his stint in the jungle, Brian Paddick revealed a longing for the kind of money WAG and fellow contestant Carly Zucker has at her disposal.

If his latest demands are anything to go by, the ex-police chief appears determined to catch up.

While other stars have freely given interviews on exiting I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, Paddick has refused.

Instead, he touted an account of his time in the jungle to the top bidder, for a minimum of £10,000.

It also emerged the 50-year-old, who was paid £15,000 to appear on the show, is trying to sell the publication rights of his January wedding with his gay Norwegian lover, Petter Belsvik.

Yet Paddick, the former highest-ranking gay policeman in Britain, is not short of a bob or two.

His pension is worth £65,000 a year – half his final £130,000 salary earned as the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner when he retired in 2007. He also received a £400,000 pay-off.

But after Miss Zucker, 26, partner of £60,000-a-week Chelsea star Joe Cole, moaned that money was a burden to her, Paddick said: ‘I don’t have much money. Listening to you lot discussing exotic holidays and things, I’m not jealous or resentful.

But it must be wonderful being able to do what you want, it gives you freedom.’

As aides touted Paddick’s story, they claimed he ‘had no desire to be a celebrity’.

What is certain is the Lib Dem candidate has once and for all stopped trying to be taken seriously.

Source: Daily Mail