Matt Hancock revelled in his new celebrity status and posed for selfies after arriving at the celebs' hotel hand in hand with his girlfriend Gina Coladangelo.
The disgraced MP grinned for the cameras after coming third in I'm A Celebrity and hugged fellow contestants and friends and family at the JW Marriott hotel on Australia's Gold Coast before fans asked him for selfies - to which he duly obliged with a massive grin.
Hancock then looked to be in a heated conversation with Gina as they headed to a hotel room, perhaps being told of the backlash over his decision to appear on the show.
He is expected to celebrate with campmates today before flying home on Tuesday and arriving back in London on Wednesday ahead of crunch meetings with Tory chiefs when he returns to Westminster this week.
He will present a bill on dyslexia to the House of Commons on Friday, his representative said - but he might have to do so as an independent after being stripped of the Tory whip after it emerged he would be taking part in the primetime series.
It is unclear whether he will be readmitted. Nadine Dorries eventually had the whip restored after she starred in I’m A Celeb in 2012, but this took around six months.
Tory MPs have been asked by party HQ to indicate by December 5 whether they will be standing for re-election, but whether Mr Hancock’s fate is decided by then remains up in the air.
Mr Hancock also signed up for Channel 4 ’s SAS Who Dares Wins - due to screen next year - raising questions about whether he intends to establish himself as a TV star.
Yesterday, Ian Houlder, a Tory councillor in Mr Hancock’s constituency, told The Mirror: "I believe he doesn’t want to be an MP anymore, but he’s got a couple of years to sort out his options.
"If the Tory party don’t let him back in he won’t get anywhere as an independent. If they do let him back in I think there’ll be a lot of people who want to challenge him."
Speaking to Ant and Dec, Matt said: "I wanted to show what I was like as a person. Lots of people come to me with preconceived ideas, for obvious reasons.
"And I just wanted to be myself. But I also actually strongly believe that for politicians as a whole, we don't come across as human enough. And this is probably the most extreme way of just showing who you are, I am someone who throws himself into things.
"And we managed to talk about some important things here."
On being grilled about his reasons for going onto the show he added: "I was expecting that and some of those were grillings and some were a release because I could say what I thought and some were very emotional.
"I live with them and I feel it. But what I was able to and what I was grateful for, we had really grown up conversations about it."
In June 2021 he was forced to resign as Health secretary after CCTV footage surfaced of him embracing his aide Gina Coladangelo at a time when this would breach his own rules on physical contact. It also ended his 15 year marriage.
He and Gina are now an item and she was there to greet him when he left the show last night after he was crowned king by Ant and Dec.
