IMOGEN Bailey remembers how buggered Nicolle Dickson was. "We were sleep deprived and malnourished," she says. For 24 days they'd played the Celebrity Survivor game on a Vanuatu island and, to all the contestants' surprise, it had been a really rough time.
As a survivalist Dickson had bonded with model Bailey and both had hardly eaten hardly anything but green mandarins, paw paws, sugar cane, some taro and the odd rock crab. Dickson collected firewood daily and slept in a humpy. Then there were the difficult challenges she and – initially – 10 other players had to perform for the TV spectacle.
It was a game all in the name of charity, and when Dickson became the fourth last contestant to be voted off she was meant to be driven to a resort for a shower and then taken out to Port Vila's finest restaurant with other previous evictees Gabrielle Richens, former Wallaby Elton Flatley and David Oldfield, the politician she'd helped vote off days before. But he wanted nasty revenge. The three formed a jury to decide who would be evicted – either Guy Leech, Days Of Our Lives actor Justin Melvey, Bailey or Dickson.
Oldfield believed the latter had betrayed him. He eyeballed her at the tribal council just after sunset, ran a throat-cutting finger across his neck and danced a jig as he placed his vote.
The crew and producers weren't impressed, glances were exchanged and heads shook. Twenty minutes later Dickson tried to climb into the people mover with Oldfield and company. She mentioned how much she was looking forward to a real dinner. "We haven't booked for you," spat Oldfield.
The others said nothing and looked away, and Dickson instead retreated and ate cheap Chinese from the crew buffet that night.
"His behaviour towards Nic was inexcusable," Bailey said this week. "It was completely unnecessary. While he apologised later, it's just not the way adults behave. It was a game and he has to remember that, and to actually exclude someone going to dinner and to speak to them like that is, I think, utterly inexcusable. It made me really angry."
Oldfield was later unrepentant. He'd struck an alliance with Bailey and Dickson but they'd been convinced by Leech and Melvey that he was up to no good and they switched sides. "What Nicolle and Imogen did was stupid and deceitful," he said. "They made the foolish error of believing I was going to betray them."
So much for the three relaxing weeks in the sun most players were looking forward to. They'd been surprised that they were literally left to the elements without support except an emergency standby medical team.
An early mutiny, led by dancer Kym Johnson and Bailey, was quelled by producers (resulting in Johnson voting herself off at the first council). Bailey then had a panic attack during a water challenge and was on the nose with her team.
As the backstabbing game based on deceit progressed, she clashed badly with Fiona Horne.
"I thought I would be fine but I was the person who got the angriest about who put us there," she says. "I stamped my feet and had a good whinge. But there came a point where I realised this was going to be my world and if I wanted to come out of this challenge having given it my 100 per cent, then I had to wake up and smell the coffee."
And she did. Bailey confounded all and an inner Amazon emerged from her tiny body as she made it all the way to the final, airing tomorrow night. It's her, Leech and Melvey, but Bailey lasted the longest of all as the other two were bought back to the game after a week of rest after earlier being voted off.
So two hunky, fit and fed blokes take on one true survivor who has come out of the experience a changed and far more confident woman – one more than happy to call Oldfield's spade a spade.
"Something happened, she found an extra hunk of something," says host Dicko. "She was a moaning sod at first, but she went from grumpy sod to someone who bore it so stoically. I was astounded at the transformation."
Leech and Melvey come across as bullies to Bailey's heroine in the final and viewers will rally to her. Whatever the result, Bailey is proud.
"In the beginning I definitely couldn't handle it," she says.
"I wasn't dealing with what it did to my body because food and sleep are very important to me. The most desperate moment was eating salad from a garbage bag we found on day three.
"But I went from a shy and not very confident person in social situations to standing up for myself, particularly to Fiona. Then I found this strength and I feel like I've come out of this experience as a new woman which I'm really thankful for.
"I'm proud to have made the final and I think it's going to be interesting for the viewers.
"I was very honoured and frustrated to be up against two boys who were very strong athletes and smart guys."
See more of Imogen at http://www.imogenbailey.com
See more of Imogen at http://www.imogenbailey.com