I’m A Celeb gets cheeky: ‘We’re getting a lot of votes for Waleed’

NAZEEM Hussain and Waleed Aly are two different people, but not everyone gets that. I’m A Celeb poked fun at the confusion with a brilliant blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gag.

COMEDIAN Nazeem Hussain and journalist Waleed Aly have been confused with each other in the past — and it seems it may still be happening.

With Hussain currently in the jungle for I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, hosts Julia Morris and Chris Brown couldn’t resist a cheeky nod to the fact the comic has been mistaken for The Project host Aly more than once.

Waleed.

Nazeem.

Encouraging viewers to vote for their favourite Celeb by texting their name to the number on the screen, the hosts acknowledged that two celebs in particular have trickier names for viewers to spell.

Therefore, they pledged an amnesty on dodgy spelling variations for those voting to save Nazeem or Tziporah Malkah, the ’90s cover girl formerly known as Kate Fischer.

Any reasonable go at texting in these names would be counted as a vote, they explained, as a raft of acceptable variations of Nazeem and Tziporah scrolled across the screen:

Mazem. Nadeem. Nazeen. WALEED.

See it?

“Little special shout out there to Waleed, who scored a few votes,” said Brown.

“Lot of votes, got a lot of votes,” Morris agreed.

Ten assure us this was just a little joke, that legions of viewers aren’t actually texting in to keep “Waleed Aly” in the jungle, and that voting on the show is in fact taken very seriously (which is bad news for any fans of Natalie Bassingthwaighte who find her name impossible to spell and have been texting “Izzy off Neighbours” instead).

Phew. For the record though, the two are good friends — and Hussain has said in the past that he’s often mistaken for Aly.

So where did all this start? In 2014, Fairfax Media used a picture of Hussain in a TV column with the caption: “Waleed Aly joins The Project.”

That unfortunate error went viral and kickstarted a flurry of jokes, with everyone from rival publications to Aly’s broadcasting peers getting in on the act.

It's so tempting to open 7.30 tonight with "Welcome to the program, I'm Waleed Aly."

— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) December 18, 2014

For the record: Nazeem Hussain and Waleed Aly are two different people. Here’s proof: the two pictured together, in a photo tweeted by Aly’s wife Susan Carland ...

Singularity. pic.twitter.com/NG2uxv6F2k

— Susan Carland (@SusanCarland) December 18, 2014

I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here screens Sunday — Thursday, 7:30pm on Ten.