The Rock responds to reports linking him to UK's "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here"

The British tabloid media and TV gossip sites, like The Daily Mirror and What's On TV, have bitten on the unlikely rumour that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would be the lead star on this season's UK survival reality show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!".

So the story goes, he would willingly ship himself off to Australia doing embarrassing dares for several weeks with a motley crew of down on their luck British celebrities. These would include former sitcom / sci fi / soap stars like Linda Robson (Birds Of A Feather's Tracey Stubbs), Colin Baker (the sixth Doctor Who), Charlie Brooks (Eastender's Janine Butcher) and Helen Flanagan (Coronation Street's Rosie Webster), retired sportsmen like boxer David Haye and darts thrower Eric Bristow, comedian Brian Conley, ex Pussycats Doll Ashley Roberts, politician Nadine Dorries (the closest UK equivalent to Todd Akin, but relatively sane by comparison) and people even I have little knowledge of. Prizes for any American Cagesiders that could finger them all in a line up.

If these "journalists" stopped and thought for a second, then they would have realised that there was a snowball's chance in hell that ITV Studios could cough up enough dough to make it worth The Rock's while, not to mention that his extremely busy schedule would preclude it anyway.

It didn't take The Rock long to kill the rumour dead via Twitter:

"Garbage rumor #BS RT: @Tom17Donlan: Rumor has it that Rock is going onto UK's "I'm A Celebrity" I'm calling BS!"

That didn't stop The Daily Mirror asking whether The Rock doth protest too much and asking British WWE stars William Regal and Wade Barrett, over in the UK for tonight's Monday Night Raw taping, their thoughts on the matter. Regal bluntly pooh poohed the notion that "The Great One" would ever stoop to appearing on such a tawdry program:

"There's no chance of The Rock being on that."

Barrett was equally sceptical:

"I think he's probably got bigger fish to fry. He's a big Hollywood star, he main events Wrestlemania, he's had hit songs during his career ... I would be astounded if he goes in. If he does do it, he will win it I guarantee it. But I'd be very surprised if he did [appear on the show]."

I'm glad they've got much more common sense than my native rag writers and wouldn't play along with such nonsense.