Former Illinois First Lady Patti Blagojevich has made some unlikely friends during her stay in the jungle on NBC's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! On last night's episode, she found sympathy from former American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar, retired pro wrestler Torrie Wilson, and retired NBA player John "Spider" Salley.
But Patti's fellow jungle dwellers aren't the only support she has, according to her recent conversations.
"What does it feel like when you have to go out in public?" Salley asked her.
"People are really supportive," Patti replied. "My husband, he's a jogger, he runs and people honk and [give him] thumbs up and [say] 'Don't let 'em get to ya.'"
Salley empathized with Patti, saying that while he'd been in the public spotlight also, "politics is way more sneaky and undercutting."
"We got a lot of heat because we didn't move to Springfield," Patti told the camp. "We didn't move to the state capital. There's a 35-room, 50,000-square-foot mansion in Springfield with chefs and butlers and stuff."
One can only hope that she's not talking about the Illinois Executive Mansion, the official residence of the Governor. That Mansion only has 16 rooms and is considered a historic site. The governor is not expected to actually reside there, but rather in the 7-room private apartment behind the mansion.
"We decided that, for the girls, we wanted to keep them in the school that they were and in the home that they were," she continued, "because it would be too much [for them]. I felt like it was important to keep that part of their lives as normal as possible. Those people in Springfield hated us for that because they felt that it was a slight that we didn't move to the state capital."
Patti complained to her new comrades about her former friends back home.
"People he's known for 17 years voted to impeach him. Y'know, good friends. They just weren't strong enough to be able to stand against the tide or speak up for him."
But Patti did say that she has found new strength during her jungle stay, some of which she displayed during the episode's luxury competition. Paired with Wilson, she competed against Salley and Stephen Baldwin. The two teams had to use a two-person saw to cut through a very thick log. Once the log was cut, the celebrities would have access to a canister containing a scroll with a math problem, the answer to which opened the number-coded combination lock on a box. The first to open the box won the prize.
At first glance, the physically stronger men seemed to have the advantage, but their significant difference in height may have worked against them. Blagojevich and Wilson sawed through their log first and began on the math problem, which involved adding and subtracting a long series of three-digit numbers.
While the men bickered and argued over their math, the women cooperated and reached a solution first.
"I had confidence in Patti," said Wilson, "because I knew she'd be good with numbers. I just knew that."
And there wasn't even a Senate seat involved.
Matt Bartosik is the editor of Off the Rocks' next issue and a contributor to Reality Shack.
