SHE was fun and bubbly in the I’m A Celebrity camp, but Emily Atack was secretly battling depression – and there was a shrink on standby when she was in the jungle.

The comedy actress, whose all-singing, all-dancing antics captured viewers’ hearts, also had a terrifying panic attack shortly before going on the hit ITV show.

In an exclusive interview, 28-year-old Emily tells of her mental health problems and reveals she regularly sees a counsellor.

She also addresses last week’s Sun on Sunday exposé about her rumoured fling with her married Dancing On Ice partner in 2010.

Emily says: “I’ve only had one panic attack in my whole life and that was just before I left for the jungle. It was so, so horrible, totally out of the blue and really weird.

“I was getting my eyelash extensions done and I’d had a really stressful few weeks in the build-up to doing the show. I was lying there and it just crept up.

“I didn’t know what was happening. I was sweating, my heart rate was creeping up and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was awful.”

Emily, who was runner-up to Harry Redknapp in a final watched by more than 13million people, adds: “So obviously I was pretty nervous about going into camp, and I had a really low day on day two.

“But I am so proud of myself for getting through it and having such an amazing experience.

“I honestly feel like a different person now. It’s hard to explain how much can change in three weeks and although I’m the busiest I’ve ever been, weirdly I’m also the most chilled. I don’t think I’ll ever have another panic attack.”

With her impressions and constant stream of gags, the Inbetweeners actress had her campmates in stitches.

But it was not all fun and games, psychiatric experts were keeping a watchful eye on all the celebs.

Emily says: “There were a lot of down days in the jungle that weren’t aired. We all struggled at times. But we pulled each other through it, plus the show psychiatrist helped. ITV were so protective of us all.

“I saw the psychiatrist before and after the show, and they’re still checking in to make sure I’m OK.

“I’m not afraid to admit I have therapy. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and it really does help.

“I have struggled in the past. I have been through a lot in my life, my parents divorced when I was 16 and it was a very difficult time.

“I am a very emotional person so, for me, it’s about someone listening to your feelings and giving their professional opinion.

“I’m naturally a very happy person but I’ve had times with depression, and have got through it with therapy.

“Sometimes it’s hard to admit though, especially if you’re known as a happy person, because you feel you’re letting people down if you’re not being happy 24 hours a day.

“I have a great life, amazing family and friends, so it’s easy for people to be like, ‘What have you got to be sad about?’

“But it’s not that, it’s a chemical imbalance in your brain that sometimes needs to be treated.

“I’ve never spoken about this publicly before but it goes with this whole honesty thing that I got from the jungle. I guess I just want to be honest now and say I’ve had depression spells.”

Emily’s I’m A Celeb stint — which saw her bitten by a snake during one particularly hideous Bushtucker Trial — has earned her a legion of new fans.

It has also given her career a timely boost and 2019 is shaping up to be her busiest ever year.

She has had “loads of amazing offers” including theatre productions, TV and radio shows and modelling opportunities. And her stand-up tour in the spring, Talk Thirty To Me, is rapidly selling out.

The tour tackles what she terms her “quarter-life crisis”.

Emily, who turns 29 on Tuesday, explains: “I am approaching 30, but still waking up with a traffic cone on my head, having fallen asleep drunk with jeans on and waking up with half a club sandwich in my hand.

“I don’t own a flat, I don’t drive, I don’t have a fiancé and I don’t have kids. Sometimes you do think, ‘Am I doing something wrong?’

“You are taught about puberty and the menopause and how tough they can be, but a quarter-life crisis you’re not prepared for.

“Another thing doing the show taught me is that I used to use alcohol as a bit of a crutch.

“Booze is a huge part of this industry. It becomes an armour, a way of communicating with people, bolstering confidence.

“I am a self-confessed party girl, I do binge drink and I love socialising.

"And I do get through a lot of rosé in a weekend, it’s my lady petrol.

"But I realise now I don’t need alcohol — I can still have fun and be myself without it.”

In the jungle, the usually glamorous star went without make-up. For someone who once came tenth in FHM’s Sexiest Woman of the Year, it was a bold decision.

Luton-born Emily also says she would never use a digital app to make herself look thinner in photos and insists she “doesn’t want to be photoshopped on magazine covers any more”.

She adds: “Pre-jungle, I used to have women coming up to me in the street saying, ‘Ooh, my son fancies you’ or ‘My husband loves you’. I was very much a man’s woman.

"But now people are saying, ‘My daughter adores you’, and that fills my heart with joy.

“I used to stand in front of a mirror and say, ‘You fat, ugly cow’. I didn’t like who I was. But now I have total self-acceptance.

It is this statement which leads us to the only unconfortable moment of the interview.

Last week The Sun on Sunday revealed Emily had been accused of having an affair with Fred Palascak, her married partner on Dancing On Ice.

Witnesses told how the skating pro was confronted by his wife Mel Lambert over backstage rumours concerning the pair eight years ago.

And earlier this year it emerged she had had a fling with Strictly contestant Seann Walsh. Friends say she dumped him straight after finding out he was seeing actress Rebecca Humphries.

Emily refuses to be drawn on the matters, but does admit to making mistakes in the past.

Currently single, she says: “I am a 100 per cent a different person to when I started out.

“It’s not an excuse but my life was so crazy as a teenager. I was a kid and now I’m a woman.

“Of course I’m still learning from my mistakes, but there are things that I would never, ever repeat in my life now.”

In camp, Emily famously asked Harry if his footballer son Jamie was single too. And in the Bush Telegraph she winked into the camera and told Jamie to call her.

Harry has given his blessing and there has even been talk of a reunion lunch after Christmas which Jamie, 45, might attend.

Emily says with a laugh: “Poor, poor Jamie. I was being playful and silly.

“Will Harry set us up over lunch? Maybe. We’ll see. Right now it’s important for me to be single and clear-headed and see what happens.

“I am not frightened now of being on my own.

“Every young woman, even without realising it, is probably looking for love. But if you try and look, you probably won’t find it.”