Ian “Dicko” Dickson opens up about rough upbringing on I’m A Celeb

I’m A Celeb star Ian “Dicko” Dickson shocked his campmates when he opened up about his brutal upbringing.

Ian “Dicko” Dickson showed viewers his vulnerable side last night on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! as he opened up about his rough upbringing.

The music mogul and former Australian Idol judge spoke candidly about growing up with a “brutal” father, who was part of the special forces unit of the British Army.

“My dad was a brute. He spent five years in the SAS in Malaysia in the 1950s and I never got on with my dad that well,” Dicko told his fellow campmates in the South African jungle.

“He wasn’t a great dad and [he was] pretty violent. All through my childhood, I’ve seen him destroy one, two, three blokes in a fight. He’s a little bloke, [but] he used to box for the SAS as well and he was a weapon.”

Ian “Dicko” Dickson reflected on his childhood in last night’s episode of I’m A Celeb. Picture: Ten

Dicko, now 60, said his dad turned to alcohol and claimed he never recalled him being sober.

“He became an alcoholic and he never really stopped being a user and I think because he was from a s**t background and had a s**t life … and he was fairly brutal, it just carried through in his whole life,” he said.

And Dicko said his grandmother was just a tough. In one violent incident, she stabbed his father, her own son, in the back.

Dicko got candid with his campmates in the South African jungle. Picture: Ten

“[My dad’s] got a stab wound in his back that I assumed was from the army and he told me later in life it was from his mum. He wound her up so much that she turned around with a bread knife and went for him … and she stuck it in his back.”

Dicko told his campmates that he’d never forged a relationship with his father. Therefore, he wanted it to be different for his children, and tried to facilitate a relationship between them and their grandfather.

“I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got kids now. Maybe they should know their granddad?’” he said, revealing hepaid for his father’s plane ticket from Italy to visit the family in Geneva, where they were living at the time.

Dicko said he tried to make amends with his father when he became a dad himself. Picture: Ten

”But he behaved really badly. I did that a couple more times and every time I paid for him to come back, he just behaved worse and worse. Then when I moved to Australia, I thought, ‘Acutally, I don’t need him in my life’, so I just cut him off.”

Despite their estrangement, Dicko thanks his father for inspiring him to do better in life.

“My mum was my angel, but he was my driving force,” he said. “He never provided for the family, and I always said I’m going to provide for my family.”

In a later confessional, Dicko said he doesn’t hold any ill will towards his father because everyone has good points and bad points, and his dad “was a fabulous entertainer, so if I’ve inherited any of those things from him, I guess I’ll accept them with good grace as well.”

I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! continues 7:30pm Thursday on Ten.

Originally published as Ian “Dicko” Dickson opens up about rough upbringing on I’m A Celeb