A poignant scene in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! had an emotional effect on the Paddy Kirk actor as it revealed the true personality of his Emmerdale co-star
One of the most emotional moments so far in I’m A Celebrity 2025 left Emmerdale star Dominic Brunt reaching for the tissues. because it showed “a real look” into his on-screen wife Lisa Riley. Dominic, who plays Paddy Kirk in the soap, described Lisa Riley as “a force of nature”, and said the poignant scene “was a real look” into her true personality.
It was certainly a memorable moment when Lisa gently encouraged campmate Jack Osbourne to discuss the death of his father, Black Sabbath singer Ozzy. Lisa also opened up about her own grief over the loss of her dear mum Cath, as the pair quietly connected. Dominic Brunt, who plays Lisa’s on-screen husband in Emmerdale, recognised this empathetic side of Lisa.
“I thought the first time when she sat with Jack was a real look into the real Lisa,” he told The Mirror. “She spots things that other people don’t and is really empathetic. As soon as she sat down with him, I thought, ‘oh, this is really going to be good.’
“You know, two people that have suffered quite greatly in their lives. I don’t think Lisa will ever get used to the loss of her mum.”
Before entering the jungle, Lisa revealed that she was participating in the show to honour her mum – who passed away from cancer in 2012. She expressed: “I can’t help feel that maybe it is my mum in heaven giving me a message to do the show. She would be saying: ‘go on, knock them dead and just have a laugh’.”
Soap star Dominic Brunt, who portrays Paddy Kirk opposite Mandy Dingle, was the only person besides her partner that Lisa confided in about her jungle plans. Lisa shared her secret with him several months before the line-up was announced.
“I thought, right, if you’re telling me, I’m not even going to tell my wife,” he says. “I don’t keep any secrets from my wife, so it was very strange. But it was great. It was really exciting as well.”
Lisa initially phoned him whilst at work to gauge his thoughts on entering the camp, before revealing she had already committed to the show.
“She called me on set one day,” he recalls. “She said that she’d been asked to do the jungle, and she wasn’t sure, what did I think? And I was going, you’d be brilliant. You should do it. And then later she said, I’m actually doing it. I was really flattered that she told me. We have a very, very close relationship, and we have since 1997, but I was really flattered by the fact that it’s only me and her fella, who knew, and to be trusted like that.”
He was also acutely conscious of how rapidly such news could circulate around a bustling soap set. “Obviously we work in a place full of actors, and there are very few secrets there. I just thought, I better keep it to myself,” he chuckles.
Prior to her jungle stint, Lisa warned she might “go full Mandy Dingle” if exhaustion and hunger took their toll. Considering the limited food and rest available in there, this seemed entirely plausible.
However, Dominic insists viewers shouldn’t anticipate seeing Mandy stomping through the camp each evening.
“I’ve very rarely seen that side of her, I have to say,” he reveals. “She’s not a moody person. She’s a very upbeat person, and I think even when she’s tired, that’s the only time that you’ll really see her quite quiet.”
Dominic, who has portrayed Paddy since 1997, first wed Mandy on screen back in 1999. Following years of separation, the duo eventually remarried in a 2024 plotline.
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