I’m A Celebrity: Danny Miller crowned 2021 winner

Emmerdale actor Danny Miller has been crowned the winner of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!

He beat fellow finalists actor Simon Gregson and singer Frankie Bridge to be crowned the king of the castle.

Miller described winning as “the best thing that’s ever happened to me” – other than the birth of his son Albert three weeks before the show began.

His victory follows a turbulent series which saw several episodes cancelled due to Storm Arwen.

There were also two instances of intruders being removed from the set after breaches of security.

The finale was delayed by 10 minutes due to a public address by the prime minister on the Omicron variant and during the show Ant and Dec joked that Boris Johnson was going to sign up for the next series of the show.

The pair have made quips about the prime minister throughout the series – on Tuesday they went viral after joking about the row over a Downing Street Christmas party held while London was under tough Covid restrictions last year and referring to Mr Johnson as the “prime minister… for now”.

After winning, the 30-year-old soap star said: “I never thought I’d be in this position, I barely thought I’d make it through the first two or three votes or so.”

He said he had gone on the show to secure his child’s future financially.

“I have made no secret about the fact that I wanted to be able to give him and set him up for a good future. I wasn’t financially set for that and this is an opportunity to do that,” he said.

“It would set me and my family up. I feel like I have done it. I feel proud of myself and I hope my family are as well.”

Singer Bridge, a former member of pop band The Saturdays, said she was “so happy” after placing third.

“Being quite a naturally anxious person, I kind of wanted to prove myself wrong on things that I’m really scared of and show other people, if you’re scared you can do them and end up smiling at the end,” she told Ant and Dec.

Bridge also joked that she can now have a “long and happy marriage” after placing higher on the show than her husband, footballer Wayne Bridge, who came fifth in 2016.

Coronation Street’s Gregson, who placed second, told Ant and Dec he had finished the series with greater self-confidence.

“I knew before I came in that I needed to be in a certain state of mind not to be ‘blah blah blah’ and I think I achieved that,” he said.

One of the biggest names to take part in this year’s series, Richard Madeley, left the show after just a few days.

The TV presenter was taken to hospital after falling ill, and was not able to return because his departure from the castle had broken the show’s Covid bubble.

But the show continued to attract viewers despite the setbacks.

A consolidated audience of more than 10 million watched the series launch. Since then, it has generally attracted a live audience of around five million, with most episodes rising to more than seven million when catch-up viewing is included.

For the second consecutive year, I’m A Celebrity took place at Gwrych Castle in north Wales after moving from the Australian jungle because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last year’s winner, author and podcaster Giovanna Fletcher, was not present to crown the new champion in Sunday’s finale, reportedly due to Covid-19 fears.

The pandemic has posed logistical problems for many TV shows in the last 18 months. However, it was bad weather that caused the most disruption to this series of I’m A Celebrity.

Live elements of one episode were abandoned and Ant and Dec pre-recorded their links following an amber weather warning. Three more episodes were cancelled altogether and the celebrities were removed from the castle after it was damaged during Storm Arwen.

I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! has aired annually in the UK since 2002.