Luke Jacobz’s heartbreaking reason for doing I’m A Celebrity

While most contestants who enter the jungle are looking for a way to further their career, this star has a much more serious reason for going on reality TV.

It’s a show famous for helping reality TV stars extend their 15 minutes of fame or reintroducing has-beens to a new audience.

But for Luke Jacobz, former Home And Away star and host of The X Factor, it’s a family tragedy that has spurred his decision to go on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!

Four years ago the 37-year-old’s life was turned upside down when his father John Ashwood died after a short battle with cancer.

“I lost my dad to brain cancer in 2015 and it was something that happened really, really, suddenly,” Jacobz told news.com.au.

“It overtook and it just completely changed mine and my family’s life, because it was just all of a sudden everything was fantastic and then it just turned around.”

Luke Jacobz. Picture: Nigel Wright

Luke Jacobz’s dad died suddenly in 2015. Picture: Christian Gilles

The TV personality has backed Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer as his charity of choice and is prepared to “eat whatever they tell me to” in order to raise money.

“For what I went through I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy,” Jacobz said. “I just think that we’ve got all this technology and we can fix things on different planets but we can’t fix things here. I would hate anyone to go through what I went through.”

When news.com.au caught up with Jacobz last month he revealed he was employing a rather

unusual way of preparing for I’m A Celebrity — doing nothing.

Jacobz hasn’t seen a single episode of the Network 10 reality show and “wants to keep it that way”.

“I’d rather not spend my Christmas and New Year’s panicking about what’s going to happen,” he said.

“I’d rather just go, “You know what, let’s just enjoy this time off now,” and then I know it’s going to very much change over the next month or two.”

Luke Jacobz admits to being someone who gets hangry. Picture: Jonathan Ng

But one thing Jacobz planned to do was indulge in plenty of comfort food before heading to South Africa as he is someone who gets “hangry” — angry when they are hungry — very easily.

“I’m concerned about the food thing only because I have a very fast metabolism so my entire life I’ve always eaten lots of food,” he said.

“There’s times when I go out to dinner and friends turn up late they know that they’re late because I’m very unpleasant because I get hangry.

“I don’t want Australians to only see that side of me so when I’m hungry hopefully I will be able to learn to get past it.”

Catch Luke Jacobz on I’m A Celebrity this Monday to Wednesday on Network 10