Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley has shared how her late mother provided solace during her most challenging moments in the I’m A Celebrity jungle.

The usually cheerful star confessed to feeling “alone” and “vulnerable” as she grappled with the realities of camp life. The 49-year-old revealed that during her lowest point, she distanced herself from the camp, seeking solitude by the creek.

“I sat there on my own, and I had a little word with my mum,” she candidly shares. “I spoke to all my angels up there – I’m so blessed – but especially her. I was like, ‘mum, I need some strength. I need to get through. I’m struggling, and I am finding things really hard.'”

Lisa had a close bond with her mother Cath, whose death from cancer in 2012 at the age of 57 left her heartbroken. The Emmerdale star admits she found it particularly tough after participating in the fish gut challenge, describing it as the “toughest time” she encountered.

When asked to articulate her feelings, she responded: “I felt alone, vulnerable….the challenge probably takes it out of you, and the feeling that you’ve got to do well, you’ve got to provide.” She admitted that the pressure of everyone else excelling in the trials weighed heavily on her.

“We were getting hefty numbers. No one got less than six stars. And I’d done really well. I got a mega number. But then you get back and you don’t know what day it is, what time it is, and you just want that reassurance maybe from home to go, ‘You know what, Lisa, you’re doing b***** brilliant.'”

She revealed that her most challenging moment came after returning to camp following the trial, reports the Mirror. She explained: “We’d left the camp so quickly that morning, I hadn’t prepared any clean clothes. I had nothing. Everything I had was saturated. So I sat there smelling like a wet fish market nine times over and covered in green stuff in the heat. I was sitting on the bottom step of the Telegraph all on my own. I just wanted time out.”

She disclosed that her dear mate Ruby Wax spotted she was having a tough time. She continued: “Ruby went, ‘baby’s lost her smile,’ and for Ruby to see that… I had no smile in me. I was like, ‘This is really hard. This is really, really hard.’ And then what I did was I literally took myself down to the furthest part of the creek where they collect wood from. I thought, ‘I just stink’. There was no option B.”

The actress revealed that her fellow campmates rallied around her during her darkest moments. She continued: ” In the toughest times, I was always the one to make people feel better. But Martin was there, Jack was there for me, Ruby… the boys, I mean, those lads. I’m old enough to be their mum, right? Those boys, I have been there as a sister figure, a mother figure, call it whatever you want, but for the boys to be so instinctive that day especially, and they were like… I could see it around camp, everyone going, ‘Lisa’s low’. My balloon popped.”

Fortunately, Lisa managed to bounce back, describing her jungle stint as “everything I wanted it to be and so much more.” Lisa also dropped 20lbs during her time in camp – a result she attributes to “portion control” and constant physical activity.

“When you’re in there, people don’t have an idea of the lifestyle, the geography of the camp. It’s the do-ability, the activeness,” she explains. “Like, when you go up to the Telegraph to talk, it’s step after step. When you go to a challenge, you never stop moving. It’s endless. It’s not just sat around a campfire having loads of giggles.”

She also addressed her cheeky confession in camp about finding Ant McPartlin “juicy”. Lisa chuckled: “Any red-blooded woman would say Ant is juicy, and he looks really well. But I’m in a very, very, very happy relationship, I could not be happier. But you know, as I always say, you can go to Waitrose, you don’t have to buy anything.”

When asked if she blushed upon seeing Ant in camp, she responded: “I wouldn’t say blushes. Listen, I’m a flirt. I flirt with everybody. That’s who I am. I’m not going to stop. I’m a flirt, and I’m so secure in my relationship I can flirt with everybody, but I know who I go home to every night and who loves me and who I love.”

The man she goes home to is her long-term fiancé Al, who she has been with for 12 years. “We know where our bread’s buttered with each other,” she adds. “Al knows fully well what he’s got in me. I’m not shy. I’m very forward-coming. I love a laugh, and I’m a flirt, why not?”

I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! continues tonight at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX