Im A Celebrity I'm a Celeb's Martina warns: Watch out, whiners

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova says she has no time for whiners and her fellow contestants on I'm a Celebrity will find out how competitive she is.

Martina says she will tell people exactly what she thinks of them and will get annoyed if they don’t listen.

"Of course I’m competitive – nobody goes on the court saying I want to lose. Nobody that goes on this show says, ‘Oh, I want to be out of there after the first week and just watch it you know from the hotel the rest of the time’. We all want to stay on.

“It’s when you’re not trying and you have a lousy attitude or you’re a whiner. It’s like, ‘Come on, let’s go’. So that would annoy me. But if people are trying I would always try to help them out and definitely you know bring them up so that everybody wins."

“So if somebody’s a real ass out there, just try to deal with it. Hopefully, that won’t be the case.”

Having said that, Martina says she's joining I’m A Celebrity for a challenge and does hope to make friends and be a team player.

"I love new experiences and any time I have an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before I do it, other than bungee jumping. So I like new challenges, I like new problems.

“I think my friends would say that I am very playful but reasonable.

Martina confessed that she has never watched I’m a Celebrity and admits that she doesn’t really know what she is letting herself in for.

She says: “I’m flying very blind here. I have no idea what to expect other than having to rough it in the bush in Australia with nine strangers. So I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never seen the show and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

“I think the biggest challenge for me is food, but a few weeks in the jungle, I’m ready for that. I’m ready to get rid of my BlackBerry, get rid of my watch and just see what happens.

“I am scared of, or I’ll be worried about, poisonous creatures, whether it’s snakes or spiders. Some are very, very nasty. So that would be my biggest worry. Apparently there are like five spiders within 9ft of you at all times wherever you are.

“So I am not too worried about it, but the stuff that crawls. Not great. But I’m all right. Snakes, I’ve touched a snake. I was OK about that. We’ll see. Not great. Not horrible.”

The things Martina will miss most in the jungle are her partner and reading the New York Times. "I will miss reading the New York Times and just being able to read really, I think that is going to be difficult.

“I’m definitely ready to chuck my watch, chuck my BlackBerry and I will miss the newspapers, but all this other stuff, I’m ready not to have it in my life.

“Of course contact with my friends and family, my girlfriend, not necessarily in that order. My I-pod, watching my shows or listening to music. Reading, doing Sudoku..."