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Surviving the Celebrity Jungle with Lou Diamond Phillips, John Salley, and Torrie Wilson
by Troy Rogers
 After
watching the first couple of episodes of NBC's
I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!, it's safe
to say the celebrity survivor series in the Costa
Rican jungle went on to become the most unpredictably
entertaining reality competition of the year.
From the on again, off again flirt with celebrity
surviving by The Hills stars Spencer and Heidi
and the surprise underdog showing of former American
Idol, Sanjaya Malakar, to the early voluntary
departures of one half of Frangela and Stephen
Baldwin to the bombastic personality of supermodel
Janice Dickinson, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of
Here! was definitely the top water cooler attention
getter of the summer.
But when fans narrowed the celebrity competition down to the top three I'm a Celebrity survivors, actor Lou Diamond Phillips, NBA great John Salley, and wrestling diva Torrie Wilson were the last three standing in the Costa Rican jungle before Lou Diamond Phillips was crowned the winner with the title of "King of the Jungle".
When the morning mist settled over the celebrity camp after the heat competition was over, we hopped on the phone line for a chat with the three I'm a Celebrity Get Me out of Here! finalists, including the new "King of the Jungle," Lou Diamond Phillips, for a celebrity chat about not only surviving the jungle but also their plans for the future, thoughts on their former camp mates, the many bug bites, and what they thought of celebrity underdog Sanjaya.
THE DEADBOLT: Lou, do you have any plans to direct another horror film?
 LOU
DIAMOND PHILLIPS: You know, actually, I
hate to be mercenary about this, but my wife
Yvonne had this great idea. I read the screenplay
for it, haven’t shown it around much, and it
was nice to take a dry run with it. Making the
movie was a blast and certainly not something
I was expecting to do when I came down. I just
did a film that aired on Hallmark about a month
ago called Love Tastes Sweet that I directed
and it’s certainly something I’m going to get
more into. Not that I’m ever going to give up
acting, because that’s my first love, but there’s
something about the organizational skills and
the motivational skills when you got an army
behind you that I absolutely adore about directing.
So yeah, man. I’d do a little splash and splatter.
THE DEADBOLT: John, you said that you’re coming out with a cook book. Are you going to name any of the recipes after your fellow tribe mates?
JOHN SALLEY: Yeah. I got the Sanjaya
Marinara. I've got to get my book. I named one
after Lou and I also made a pre-food after Torrie,
because you have to feed Torrie before the main
food comes or else she would fade and have a
sugar rush. So I figured that out. You do the
snacks and the hor’derves before to wet the
taste buds for the next thing. I’m pushing the
whole thing, man. The whole jungle idea was
definitely [fun]. I was thinking this is going
to be so funny. And then Daniel Baldwin and
a name, "John Salley’s NBA - Natural Bon Appetite".
 I
had the funniest title for Lou’s food. Because
Lou made this fish one time and the way he seasoned
it and the way he was trying to explain what
it tastes like, I was like, "What was that?"
It was Chicken Lou Diamond. The Lou Diamond
Phillips recipe serves eight people - Chicken
and tofu strips, two pounds. A cup of pineapple.
A cup of plantains, small chunks. A cup of onions,
four cloves of garlic, a full lime - just the
juice - and a little bit of tyme. And they ate
that chicken. Remember that chicken, Lou?
PHILLIPS: Yeah, absolutely.
SALLEY: They ate that chicken like no
problem. That’s called a Lou Diamond Chicken.
I was having so much fun naming stuff. I was
going after outdoor foods, hotdogs, hamburgers,
ribs, corn, and all of that. Pasta, glueten-free.
Rice, no sugar, and wine vinegars. We need better
plates, pots, pans, and serving dishes all in
one. Make things for the kitchen instead of
hardware, like Microsoft did. So we needed a
spatula, and trying to make a spatula out of
wood, I said, "We've got to figure out how to
do it." And then they kept singing the peanut
butter and jelly song. I was so crazy for peanut
butter and jelly, I was going to call it Sanjolly.
 I
was going to name peanut butter and jelly Sanjolly
from that point on because they were singing
that song and I thought of a cool way of making
peanut butter and jelly. Well, anybody can make
it, but you don’t have to have the whole jar.
If we would’ve had a whole jar of peanut butter,
I think we would’ve had a mutiny and like three
deaths. So that was the idea and I took all
of those ideas and things and we would talk
about it. I asked everybody what their favourite
pizza would be and everyone sat down and described
it in detail and I just remembered in detail
what their favourite pizza would be. So that
stuff all comes from these guys and they’ll
all get credit for it and one day I’ll make
it for them.
THE DEADBOLT: So is there a Dickinson Zucchini dish?
PHILLIPS: [laughs] I don’t think you know what you just said, buddy.
SALLEY: [laughs] Let me tell you. I’m going to call that, The Luggie. Eat this food if you have a cold and a lot of phlegm. It’s a very hot tempered meal that will help you loosen up your mucus membranes. It’s called the Dickinson Luggie.
THE DEADBOLT: Torrie, how did the bugs treat you?
 TORRIE
WILSON: You know, some got it a lot worse
than others. Lou, Sanjaya, and Stephen got it
really bad. The bugs bothered me and they progressively
got worse and worse. By the end I was sometimes
thinking I was going crazy. But John ... Actually,
what did you get, like five bites?
SALLEY: I got five bites because there is no flesh residue coming out of my pores. [laughs] I’ve been holding onto that one forever.
WILSON: But more than the bugs, I think
the flies. I really felt like at times the flies
were making me go insane, hearing them buzz
around my head all day.
THE DEADBOLT: When John was talking trash to you during the hand crank challenge, it didn’t affect you. Were you happy he didn’t do it during the high wire cross?
WILSON: Oh, heck yeah. John was actually a nice guy on the high wire thing, he got me through it. But when he was trash talking on the other thing with Lou, he didn’t realize at the time that he was actually pushing me harder, because I just love trash talking.
SALLEY: Yeah. I found out, face down. Shut up next time.
 PHILLIPS:
Yeah, don’t provoke her. It ticks her off.
THE DEADBOLT: Lou, everyone I’ve spoken to was surprised at how far and how well Sanjaya did. What was your take on him?
PHILLIPS: You know, I came into this
anticipating him to do really well because of
his demographic. It’s a tween demographic and
they all have cell phones today and they all
like getting involved. So if he was able to
carry over any of the Idol voting block that
he had before then I knew he was going to be
a force to be reckoned with. And the thing about
it is: From day one I just became more and more
impressed with that kid. I absolutely fell in
love with him, you know? He’s my adopted son
now.
The thing about this show that I think was
really great for everyone, and maybe something
we didn’t count on when went into the jungle,
is we were being ourselves and being true to
our hearts and it was translating. We wondered
about it sometimes because we didn’t know what
was being edited out or what angle they were
taking with any one of us. But those of us who
acted consistently and weren’t ashamed of anything
we did in camp, we thought it might have a positive
on voters and I just knew Sanjaya was charming
people.
I mean, what a sweet, wonderful kid without a mean bone in his body. And he applied himself to the trials with such enthusiasm. He won more than anybody else. So who knew that this scrawny little guy was so agile, was so strong pound-for-pound, and just game? Absolutely fearless. And with each passing day, I thought, "You know what? He’s in major contention here." There were probably five or six people, certainly John and Torrie being the utmost of that group, that I thought had a real shot at taking the title.
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