To some people, being without a mobile phone signal is the least of their worries, but for reality star Joey Essex, it’s torture. Yes, his words, not ours!
During his latest instalment of Educating Joey Essex: Essexpedition, he’s travelling 8,000 miles to one of the coldest, most remote areas on the planet – Patagonia – for an education in what being cold really means. On his trip to Patagonia, not only did he learn that he has more Twitter followers than the population of the country, he also realised he cannot handle being without his phone.
Joey actually claims at one point, “I must be allergic to cold weather” – so it doesn’t look like he’ll be faring too well in a location where temperatures can drop to minus 20.
During his latest adventure, the former TOWIE star learns about the culture, the way of life and the wildlife of the South American region. But in Joey’s toughest challenge yet, he’s going to have to survive life without phone signal or WIFI.
He told heat: “The most challenging part was the no phone signal – it’s like putting your phone on airplane mode for three days straight and being in a country with no people. It’s almost like sitting in your house for three days, you’ve got no one around you, you’ve got a few people but they’re annoying. You never get a phone signal. The longest I was without a phone was when I was in the [I’m A Celebrity] jungle but that’s different because everyone is in the same position. It’s torture.”
Well, to be fair, he does make most of his money interacting with his fans, and for someone who is always on Twitter, it can be a surreal moment giving it up temporarily. Joey said: “I missed quite a lot of notifications when I went back on Twitter – when I got WIFI, I tweeted something saying, ‘This is the first message after three hole days’ and I spelt whole wrong. Instead of people saying they missed me, everyone was just mugging me off.”
Educating Joey Essex: Essexpedition airs on ITV2 at 9pm tomorrow (10th December).