Gemma Collins brought 'huge entourage' to film a gameshow, says Stephen Mulhern
EXCLUSIVE: Stephen Mulhern, who's returning to telly screens with ITV's Rolling In It, was blown away by Gemma Collins' enormous entourage when she arrived to film for the show
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ITV host Stephen Mulhern says he was shocked when Gemma Collins turned up for his new quiz with a huge entourage that meant she needed a giant dressing room – just to take part in a gameshow.
Diva Gemma, the former TOWIE star, appears on Rolling In It where three teams - made up of the player and their celebrity partner - have to roll a coin down a moving conveyor belt towards slots which are labelled with large cash sums to win like a giant arcade game.
As the game progresses, the money values get larger, and as a result, so do the penalties.
The roll of one final coin then determines whether the contestant loses everything or goes home ‘Rolling In It.’
Asked about Gemma's appearance, Stephen, 43, said: “I went into her dressing room, it was like a Who's Who. And I had to start going round. I went 'Sorry. Hello. I'm Stephen. Nice to meet you. So, what do you do?'
'Oh, I'm Gemma's PA.' PA? Right. 'Do you mind if I ask what you do?' 'Oh, wardrobe. What? She's only got one change'.
“You're definitely makeup because yeah, you're ready to go. And the dressing room was bigger than mine and I'm like, 'How's this worked?'”
“Gemma went 'Steve, I'm only doing this show for you'. I'm like, 'Well, why wouldn't you do this show? You don't even know what the show is.' She went, 'Oh, well, no...'
“And I thought 'Hang on a second. She's been on Catchphrase as well'.”
Stephen, who also fronts Catchphrase on ITV, is convinced his new show Rolling In It is going to be his big hit on ITV, having spoken to pals Ant and Dec and his beloved dad for advice before filming.
He said: “You can have the best idea in the world and believe it's the best show, which I genuinely do. 100% I believe this is the one. I'll be mortified if it's not. It does feel different. I think it could be massive.
“I do speak to Ant and Dec about it. I've said to them, 'Look, I think this is so exciting. I think it could be incredible.' The problem is, you never really know.
“My dad he won't suffer fools gladly. And what I mean by that is that even if it's people that I really like on the telly, if he doesn't like it he'll just go, 'Oh, what a pile of crap that is'.
“And when it came to Rolling In It, I told him the premise of the game, I showed it to him and he believes this is the one as well. So yeah, that gives me an inner confidence.”
One other guest who did almost ruin the gameshow before it started is Jimmy Carr.
Stephen explained: “Jimmy Carr was phenomenal on the show. If we could show some of the outtakes it would be brilliant.
“He was just like, 'When is it my turn? I've got to have my go.' And at one point he literally launched himself. He launched himself onto the conveyor belt.
“It was like in slow motion. Because they spent, it must be hundreds of thousands of pounds on this travelator, but of course, if it was to break or go wrong, especially on series one.
“So in my ear, all the producers are going 'What the effing hell is going on?'
“And so that was a good one. But I hope they show it. If they don't, they're mad.”
The show kicks off on Saturday night with three contestants playing alongside three Coronation Street stars to win a five figure cash sum.
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