“My dad was a brute”: Dicko reveals tough upbringing
<p>Ian “Dicko” Dickinson has bared all on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! in sharing his tough upbringing.</p>
<p>The former Australian Idol judge, 60, spoke about growing up with a “brutal” father, who was part of the special forces unit of the British Army.</p>
<p>“My dad was a brute. He spent five years in the SAS in Malaysia in the 1950s and I never got on with my dad that well,” he told his fellow jungle goers.</p>
<p>“He wasn’t a great dad and [he was] pretty violent. All through my childhood, I’ve seen him destroy one, two, three blokes in a fight. He’s a little bloke, [but] he used to box for the SAS as well and he was a weapon.”</p>
<p>The 60-year-old revealed his grandmother was just as tough. He opened up about a violent incident where she stabbed her own son, Dicko’s father, in the back.</p>
<p>“[My dad’s] got a stab wound in his back that I assumed was from the army and he told me later in life it was from his mum. He wound her up so much that she turned around with a bread knife and went for him … and she stuck it in his back.”</p>
<p>Dicko went on to tell his campmates that he’d never forged a relationship with his father but wanted things to be different for his children. So, he tried to facilitate a relationship between them and their grandfather.</p>
<p>“I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got kids now. Maybe they should know their granddad?’” he said, revealing he purchased his father's plane ticket from Italy to visit the family in Geneva while they were living there.</p>
<p>”But he behaved really badly. I did that a couple more times and every time I paid for him to come back, he just behaved worse and worse. Then when I moved to Australia, I thought, ‘Actually, I don’t need him in my life’, so I just cut him off.”</p>
<p>Despite the estrangement, Dicko thanks his father for inspiring him to do better in life.</p>
<p>“My mum was my angel, but he was my driving force,” he said. “He never provided for the family, and I always said I’m going to provide for my family.”</p>
<p>Later on, Dicko confessed he doesn’t hold any ill feelings against his dad because everyone has their good points and bad points.</p>
<p>He said his father “was a fabulous entertainer, so if I’ve inherited any of those things from him, I guess I’ll accept them with good grace as well.”</p>
<p><em>Image credit: Instagram</em></p>
