STANDING in a Mellor pub car park posing for pictures as snow slowly falls around him, it’s hard to imagine Carl Fogarty in the depths of a steaming hot jungle less than a week earlier.

Gone is his Crocodile Dundee hat and bandanna, replaced with a woolly jacket, and he already looks to be gaining some of the stone in weight he lost during his adventure, from which he emerged victorious.

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Carl quickly hustles into The Spread Eagle where he is congratulated by staff and customers.

One raises her glass and tells the 49-year-old King of the Jungle she had cheered him on and always knew he would win.

Taking a seat in a quiet corner of his local, the MBE, dubbed Foggy by his legion of fans, is still suffering from the effects of jet lag.

He’d been up early, and was expected to attend a party held in his honour later that night.

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The four-time world superbike champion is as straight talking as he ever was, saying he prefers a dripping tap over dramatic fellow camp mate actress Gemma Collins, and aiming a dig at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, where he was due to hand out an award last night.

“They didn’t bother about me when I won the world championships but now I’ve eaten a camel’s penis they want me on the programme,” he said.

“I thought that was quite funny.”

Although famous before taking part in I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Foggy is now a household favourite and in more demand than ever.

He will make an appearance at the British Comedy Awards in London tomorrow, and on ITV’s Text Santa, and could be soon taking a place on Alan Carr’s chat show sofa.

However, furthering his career was not Foggy’s motive for going in the jungle.

And neither was money, he says.

“I was in a good place financially and just enjoying life. That’s probably one of the biggest reasons for doing it in a way.

“Everything was that good, I just fancied a challenge.”

So, a year after turning producers down because of his mum and wife’s ill health, Foggy boarded a plane and set off for Australia.

He would go the full hog after winning the voting public over in style. At every stage, he was ahead of the competition to be crowned King of the Jungle. But it could have been so different. After arriving in the jungle, Foggy was sent to a “celebrity slammer” alongside half of the celebrities: Craig Charles, Vicki Michelle, Nadia Forde, and Gemma Collins.

“I was completely gone on the first day,” he says.

“I was panicking on the first day. I was thinking, ‘why am I like this? I have to get out of here. I can’t stand it,’” he says.

Luckily, later that day, Foggy escaped the jungle jail after being rescued by the second group of celebrities.

He says: “From feeling at an all-time low the first day I went in, to five or six hours later, getting that call, doing the first trial, winning all the stars, and then going back to camp and meeting people I knew I’d get on well with, like Jimmy Bullard, Mel Sykes, even Kendra.

“It just changed for me. I was happy.”

Although he would still prefer to be remembered as a superbike champ than King of the Jungle, Foggy says they are ‘two different people’.

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“I don’t regret anything about how I was when I was racing. I had to be that person to win,” he says.

“That’s the guy who was very focused, arrogant, ignorant,” he says.

“I’m not like that in real life. I’m a bit of a shy lad from Blackburn. It’s the simple things in life I like more than anything.”