The Rev Richard Coles: ‘I found a bromance in the jungle with a 25-year-old lesbian'

Telegraph

14 hours ago

5am
I'm an early riser. I like to think it inclines to virtue so I can do something useful like washing up or writing books.
6am
I start with morning prayer. It's an obligation for everyone who is ordained in the Church of England. Even though I'm retired as a vicar, I help out at a church near me, St Mary's in Eastbourne, East Sussex.
7am
I might boil myself an egg and have some soldiers. I'm on Ozempic at the moment – I just want to be less fat. The appetite in my head remains but the appetite in my body has greatly diminished. I was in New York the other week and normally I would be gorging on strip steaks and burgers but I ate like a bird, much to the amusement of my friends. I don't know how much I've lost. I've decided not to look.
9am
I might go out for a walk. I used to have two sausage dogs: Daisy, 15, and Pongo, 14. I lost them last year and miss them. I spend a lot of my time at home playing the piano. It's my great indulgence. I've got a piano teacher now and I'm trying to rebuild my technique. I don't miss pop music [Coles was in the synth-pop duo The Communards]. I'm really happy with what I'm playing, which is mostly classical. Or I read – often non-fiction. I love Careless People, from the whistleblower at Facebook [Sarah Wynn-Williams]. She reveals what we all suspected – a company that begins full of social justice ends up being a ruthless monopoly. She's a brave person. My new book, A Death on Location [out now], has become a bit like visiting friends tinged through the darkness of murder. It's especially interesting now because the first one, Murder Before Evensong, is being filmed for television. I'm visiting the set a fair bit and talking to the characters I've invented, who are now flesh and blood. Matthew Lewis [Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter ] is playing Canon Clement and Amanda Redman is Audrey.
1pm
I'll have a salad and hummus, which my partner, actor Dickie [Richard Cant, 60, the son of the late children's television presenter Brian], has introduced me to.
3pm
I might go out on my bike. I've got an e-bike to spare my knees and I go around looking more and more like that woman in The Wizard of Oz [Miss Gulch]. I loved being in the jungle [Coles came third in I'm a Celebrity last year]. I really did enjoy sleeping outside, and I found prayer helpful there. Prayer came under medical necessity, so I used to get access to the medical room. I had thought I might get a bromance out of the jungle. I did get one – only with a 25-year-old lesbian influencer [GK Barry]. GK and I have a continuing friendship and we are trying to arrange a reunion with everyone. We are trying to get Coleen [Rooney] to agree to have it at hers as we all want to see her media room.
6pm
You can drink with Ozempic – but your thirst is also a bit diminished. On Ozempic I just want to cook smaller portions. I did a cookery course at Ballymaloe last year and I love Sabrina Ghayour's Persian cookery. We have a division of labour – Dickie does gardening and decor; I do laundry and cooking.
8pm
We might go to recitals at the Wigmore Hall, or quite often I slob on the sofa and watch YouTube. I think social media has scrambled my ability to engage with entertainment. Occasionally we will watch something really good, like The White Lotus.
10pm
I'm a fairly poor sleeper. I take a while to drop off, especially if I doom scroll.