I've just got in from work and watched the final of 'I'm a Celeb...' on STV Player.

I'm going to come clean right now and say I stood to win around £350 if Ashley won, but I'm going to try and make my comments as unbiased as possible. These aren't bitter, heat-of-the-moment comments at losing my bet, as the event I'm talking about happened several days ago but it's only now that it's significance has been confirmed.

How on earth has Charlie won this? All week I was fairly confident Ashley was the most likely winner and although I rated David as a very strong and popular candidate, when he left on Friday night, I felt my bet was sure to come in, for three main reasons:

1. What I had seen with my own eyes, ie Ashley being a surprising, breath of fresh air in terms of a global, American popstar being so down to earth and being such a bubbly, funny and likeable girl. There wasn't much between the two finalists but Ashley remained upbeat throughout and didn't really have one negative moment or comment shown on camera whereas Charlie had a few bitchy comments about Helen which I assumed would be more than enough to swing this Ashley's way.

2. The polls on here, where Ashley had been miles ahead of everyone all week and a huge 4 to 1 favourite over Charlie. I know this poll isn't definitive and if the results had been in the 40-60% margin, I'd have taken them with a pinch of salt, but 80% in a two-horse race is a massive lead, even over a relatively small sample size of a few hundred people.

3. The fact that Ashley had never been in the 'It Might Be You,' supposed bottom two, whereas Charlie had, which gave us an indication that Ashley was indeed beating Charlie in the voting, on at least that occasion.


If it was just one of these facts that I was clinging to, I wouldn't be surprised at the outcome, but taking all three into consideration, I am pretty astonished at the result we've just witnessed. To take it a step further, I'm also a bit disappointed and disgusted at how much ITV dragged the whole 'Kiki' (Charlie's daughter) angle into matters. A few mentions of her by Charlie were obviously to be expected but to choose to broadcast the exact part of a 4-minute phonecall where the 7-year-old daughter says something along the lines of 'Mummy I really want you to be Queen of the jungle' was just bizarre and completely unfair on the other contestants in my opinion. Surely the contest should be about what we as adults have perceived of these adult celebrities, not playing us some cute seven-year-old voice, pleading for their parent to win it, which for me was akin to one of those charity adverts pleading for money, by tugging at people's heart strings. This was clearly going to result in a huge and perhaps decisive vote swing towards Charlie. All the contestants have friends and family rooting for them, there were plenty of other celebrities in there with children, why did they choose to broadcast this one child's plea for her mother to win?

I suppose my main questions would be do we find out the voting percentages at any stage and if so when?

Also, if Charlie had been a Coronation Street or Emmerdale actress rather than Eastenders, I would have suggested there was some ITV bias at play here. However, I can't see any reason why the show's makers would want Charlie to win this over Ashley or over any other candidates. So, do you think they saw how far ahead Ashley was in the voting all week and saw the Kiki angle as their best chance of making it a close contest of any sort?

I'm pretty upset at losing out on £350 which - sadly - would be a significant winfall for me and I do intend to write a letter to someone involved in the making of the show, demanding an explanation to the points I raised above. This is a genuine, considered grievance and not just heat-of-the-moment anger at losing a bet.

(Incidentally, I was surprised they brought Charlie's daughter on to set BEFORE announcing the result. I thought it would have made much more sense and better telly to bring her on after her mum had won the show, so at that point I was even more convinced that Ashley had won and they were just giving Charlie and her daughter a nice moment to remember. However, this incident happened so near to the end of voting, or possibly even after voting had closed, so I don't think this affected the result in any way.)

Yep sometime next week.

I'd throw into the pot that Ashley was way ahead in all the polls and in the betting so her supporters may have been complacent and just not picked up the phone enough.

First of all I have to say I too was shocked by the result.
This show should be about what we learn about the celeb on this show.
Not what a good actress they are or what show they are on.
It should be about what they have brought to the show.
What is clear though from comments on the forums and also twitter & facebook is that a lot of people were voting on how much they liked Charlie as an actress and how great to see an actress From BBC winning?
Also a lot were Eastenders fans and these people were following actors on the show through twitter.
Ashley unfortunately was up against all this which had absolutely nothing to do with how well they had done in camp.
I have to say the last week or so ITV2 have been banging on about the "journey" Charlie had been on, and when you hear that word it is ominous for the rest.
As far as I am concerned if we are basing this on who was the most watchable and entertaining then it is not even close.
Ashley was the biggest surprise on the show, she dispelled a lit of fears of her being too precious to do trials etc
she was down to earth and very funny.
She was clearly the most likely winner
But this was not going to be just about this show it turned out to be about a current actors uk fanbase
The Kiki factor also helped things along in the last week

After three weeks the result is an anti climax
Just like when Dougie won just for having a huge fanbase
and not based on their time in the jungle.

It's unfortunate

Sorry, but it is a case of more fool you I am afraid.

Firstly, never use DS polls as a guide. DS users are not in any way representative of the general public.

Secondly just because you saw Ashley in a specific light does not mean everyone else did.

Thirdly, Charlie is well known and so had a base to build on. Plus, while Charlie did make a few bitchy comments about Helen, how many viewers would have agreed with her?

Fourthly, just because Charlie was named as bottom two, it does not mean that she was bottom two. On occasions the other person was not actually near the bottom. However, the results will be issued and the facts will be known

The whole Kiki thing is grossly overdone in your comments. Reading it you would think that the whole programme was only about Kiki. Plus, you also ignore the anti child view. As someone who is child free then that put me off Charlie a bit. How many others would have felt the same?

Best of luck with your letter, but I doubt you will get the response that you want. Just because you disagree with the result does not make you right. That is the problem with betting, sometimes you lose.

It has indeed been very weird. First Brian being ill, then Helen making it a borefest by not doing much for ages in the trials, then apparently Eric's agent is cross about the editing, plus we had Rosemary shrieking her way through everything so that lts of us had to turn the volume down and now the result. I reckon that there have been some major mess ups.

Hmmm, I get what you're saying to an extent. I would never have bet for someone who was up against a McFly-type fanatic fanbase but I didn't think the Eastenders fanbase would be as significant in the voting.

A quick check shows that Dougie has over 1,000,000 twitter followers, Ashley has over 300,000 (although presumably far less followers than Charlie in Britain) and Charlie has around 80,000. I don't believe the fanbases were enough to swing the vote in this instance as, as I pointed out previously, we know that Ashley was ahead of Charlie in the voting on at least one occasion earlier in the week.

There is a massive difference between Dougie's fanbase and Charlie Brooks' fanbase.

A final point would be, if you're a McFly (or any other pop group fan) then you're already a fan of the people in the band as you know all about them. Being a fan of a show such as Eastenders and the characters in it, does not mean you're automatically a fan of the actors and actresses involved, as it's the characters you know all about and not the actors. If you get what I mean.

The high viewing figures for Eastenders confirm that it's a very popular programme. So even if one actor or actress hasn't got a huge fanbase - the programme, has.

Can you expand on this a bit please. Why would they not be considered a good cross-section of the general public? Obviously I wouldn't use a poll on an Eastenders fansite or Pussycat Dolls fansite as evidence but on a neutral website 80%+ is a huge margin in my opinion. Where do you feel the huge discrepancy (30%+) between poll and result comes from?



Yeah, at the moment that is just an assumption, albeit a very likely one going by what people have said, but if that bottom two turns out to be wrong, I will remove that point from any potential argument.


I really think a seven-year-old girl pleading for her 'mummy' to win the show is going to have the net result of a massive increase in that person's votes, even taking into consideration any people who were swayed to vote the other way because of this.

Also, it's not the result I'm disagreeing with, it's ITV's biased promotion of one contestant over the others.

I think, so far, it would appear I have underestimated the Eastenders fanbase. However, I still intend to pursue the biased coverage complaint and if the voting figures show what the evidence suggests, that at some point there was a swing in votes from Ashley to Charlie and if that swing coincides with the broadcast of the phonecall then I think I've got a strong case.


A further question would be, Corrie has a relatively similar sized fanbase to Eastenders, so if this reason is valid, why would Helen not have made the top two or at least gone a lot further than seventh? Even if she received a lot of negative coverage (which wasn't how I saw it, you can't help what you're scared of and I would have been even more scared than she was) surely the Corrie fanbase and the voting system of voting for your favourite rather than least favourite would have carried her a lot further than seventh IF the size of fanbase argument is valid?

Look at Antony Cotton last time he was a horrible individual but being from a huge soap gave him the fanbase support he needed and he went far.
He isn't as big a name as Charlie is and she was able to go further and had the added Kiki storyline to pull in the votes from mums.
Charlie wasn't even in the top six or seven in terms of entertainment but it didn't matter because those two main reasons I gave were enough for her.
Soap fanbase
Kiki storyline
Those things won it
If these same people were ordinary Joe's with no entertainment background.
The final would have been very different, you can win this show even before you go in as long as you have that big fanbase.

Surely though if the fanbase is that significant, then Corrie fanbase would have seen Helen into the top two. I'd have thought Corrie fanbase would be an even bigger force than Eastenders fanbase, given that it's on the same channel and immediately before 'I'm a Celeb...' on several nights?

Well it's obviously not ve'y, ve'y sexist.

But it does reek

Thankyou.

That cheered me up a lot actually, being reminded of the 've'y, ve'y sexist' running joke.

You're welcome.

Helen was being useless and upfront, though. ( So to speak). She got a reaction. Not doing much or causing much of a reaction sometimes helps because it's less likely to turn negative.

But charlie played it safe and also had the added Kiki factor
Whereas Helen annoyed a lot of people early on and only reason she got as far as she did was down to fanbase just like cotton.
If Helen had a child and kept mentioning them, then I would give her another two places that's how much emotional vote counts also.
Cotton and Flaghan were both annoying and didn't play it safe.
Charlie did play it safe had her fanbase behind her and the added emotional Kiki thing
That shouldn't be underestimated

Ok. I didn't see it that way but you may be right. I guess this argument will have to be put on hold until we have all the facts (the voting figures) and we can see whether the Eastenders fanbase won it or whether the broadcast of a particular part of the Kiki/Charlie phonecall was significant.

Incidentally, something I've just thought of, when Ashley received her call from home, was it from her mother? Could we hear what her mother was saying or just Ashley's side of the call?

Ok, whilst I personally don't believe that having a daughter/child of a certain age should be enough to swing a vote in something like this (or even relevant at all) if that's what people chose their favourite on, who am I to judge?

However, if the voting was previously different (which the current evidence does lean to) and ITV's broadcast of the 'I want you to win Mummy' type quote from a seven-year-old had a reasonably significant impact on the outcome, then I'm going to be taking things further.

I think we heard her mum ? The moment Kiki was brought into the equation though, Charlie was ' Single mum' and Ashley was ' Not a mum'. Ashley was sunk. I think it was unfair. Not unfair for Charlie to talk about her daughter or to miss her and say so ..no..that's normal behaviour. Actually bringing the child in,though - wrong.

The kid won it!!

As soon as David went I knew she'd win she fluked her way through every round. You just knew whoever was voting for her would be enough for her to win.

She should have been one of the first to go in all honesty.

I can't believe people are getting so uptight about the fact that Charlie won. Honestly, a few comments about Helen is nothing when she was consistently not trying the trials.

I am terribly sorry your favorite person did not win but thats the way it worked out.

Have you read the thread?

It's clearly not about whether my favourite person did or didn't win, it's about whether ITV's biased promotion of one particular candidate cost me money.

ITV did it to get the voting money in.

It looks like it worked.

I knew she was going to win when she made the final. There were more deserving camp mates in my opinion, which is why I knew she must have had a lot of votes thrown her way. I didn't even watch the final because I knew she was going to win, but why? There was a nicer girl than her in the final who did a lot more, entertained us a lot more. Charlie should have gone when Eric left. I think they should keep mothers of young kids off the show in future. Without her daughter she would have had hardly any airtime