A staggering 11.5 million tuned in to watch Jill Scott be crowned Queen of the jungle in the grand I'm A Celebrity final on Sunday night.
Fans of the show waited with baited breath to see if Jill, Owen Warner or Matt Hancock would come out victorious.
Sunday's episode was the highest-rated final of the show since 2018 when an average of 10.9 million watched Harry Redknapp being crowned.
And after three weeks away from their loved ones, those first interactions on the famous bridge were very telling, says body language expert Judi James.
From Hancock and Gina Colangelo recreating their steamy CCTV clinch to Mike Tindall and Zara's meaningful embrace, Judi takes a look at the romantic reunions and what they could mean for their future...
Matt Hancock and Gina Colangelo
Where Zara and Mike had little to prove to the public apart from some reinforcement signals of their ongoing passion for each other and their love of socialising and having the best fun at any party, Hancock and Gina’s body language as a very tactile couple looked much more awkward and self-aware.
Hancock seemed to have no qualms about acting like a love-sick teenager with Gina despite any negative effects on friends and family back in the UK.
He seemed to want to endorse his repeated excuse of ‘I fell in love’ and he even chose to repeat the iconic pose that got him into trouble in the first place.
His reunion with Gina involved some clumsy clutching as that naughty left hand made a play for Gina’s bum yet again. Habits die hard, especially body language habits, and Hancock’s pressing of Gina’s upper torso and pelvis against his own torso looked like sexual attraction more than tender affection.
During the aftershow party, Hancock and Gina’s poses suggest they were promoting a celebrity couple look, but there were signs of the politician version of Hancock in the way he tended to cling needily to Gina from behind when there were cameras and to look less comfortable and more awkward when they were not being photographed.
Unlike the Tindalls, whose closeness and PDAs are well documented, Hancock and Gina still seem to be in the stages of building the official narrative of their relationship for the rest of the world to see and despite his beaming smiles and his frequent clutching of Gina, Hancock looked about as natural and at ease as he did in the jungle, where his awkwardness was ongoing.
Mike Tindall and Zara
Zara and Mike’s reunion body language looked almost painfully loving, as though they had been in some kind of mourning for each other during their two-week separation.
Mike groaned and sounded tearful as he pressed his face close into hers to tell her how much he had missed her and to ask her sweetly if she was ok. The pair clung like limpets and the way their bodies and their movements were synchronised illustrated the maturity and depth of their love.
Mike’s scouring eye-gaze on the bridge showed he wasn’t interested in posing for the cameras, he was just desperate to catch sight of Zara and when he did even his alpha, tough-guy-of-the-jungle facial expression melted into a much softer and unmistakable look of love.
Mike didn’t just hug Zara, he double-hugged her, throwing his arms around her in the first move but then tightening his grip to encircle her totally and squeeze her tight in the second.
Mike and Zara’s signals were totally mirrored or synchronised and complimentary too, suggested very even levels of love.
They both clearly like to be sociable and to party too though, meaning they worked the aftershow gathering separately rather than sticking together as a double-act.
Again this reflects not just the maturity of their relationship but also a more royal trait of acting like hosts and ‘doing the room’.
Mike clearly sat like an uber-alpha here, leaning back in the front middle of the group like the alpha male he was in the jungle and with his legs splayed wide to show relaxed confidence and sociability.
Zara is at the back of some of the poses but she is also clearly working the group like her husband and having equal fun. She is seen hugging Charlene and later hugging Jill to look like the absolute fan of the Queen of the Jungle.
Jill and Shelly
Shelly must be used to the fact that she is engaged to a real-life hero, with long periods of separation a regular feature of their relationship, but with no means of contact for over two weeks this could have been the toughest challenge for all the jungle contestants, including the strong and ever-upbeat Jill.
The high-impact nature of her hug with her fiancé showed just how much the jungle Queen had been missing Shelly. Shelly flung her arms around Jill’s neck and Jill, with one hand holding her jungle sceptre, managed to perform as tight and as lovingly desperate a neck hug as Mike’s encircling body hug of Zara.
This clinging together via neck hugging signals high levels of trust as well as strong, like-minded affection.
Jill’s arm on the top of the hug hinted at a protective streak and the way Shelly used a symmetric, beaming smile of pride as she posed with Jill or sat behind her on the arm of her jungle throne showed the strongest levels of authentic pride.
The couple also share the traits of fun and sociability which might be vital now Shelly is engaged to one of the most worthy, popular and truly delightful winners of I’m A Celebrity ever.
