Jungle lion is DJ Tony

Veteran DJ Tony Blackburn's career was given a huge boost last night when he was crowned "King of the Jungle" by 880,000 phone voters in I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here.

Commentators predict the 59-year-old will experience a new wave of popularity - as Brookside actress Claire Sweeney did after taking part in Celebrity Big Brother last year. After that show Sweeney's career rocketed with her appearing in the West End, as a forces' sweetheart, and even launching her own range of Marks and Spencer lingerie.

Blackburn is currently a DJ on a six-figure wage at Capital Gold. He first won fame in 1967, spinning the first disc at the launch of Radio 1, but his career declined after he left the station.

He won 55 per cent of 1.5 million votes last night to beat socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

The final poll attracted a total of 1.5 million calls, far more than any of the previous daily polls which reduced the original seven C-list celebrities to one. Blackburn had to endure towering egos, clashing personalities and crushing boredom - plus the wilds of northern Australia - to win the contest.

Tears welled in his eyes seconds after the win, when a live TV link showed his wife Debbie, 41, and five-year-old daughter Victoria begging: "Come home daddy - I miss the hugs and the pillow fights."

In the first week of the challenge, contestant Uri Geller fooled Blackburn-into thinking he could call his family on a mobile - which turned out to be a fake. As Geller dissolved in laughter, Blackburn welled up in tears. Geller was first to be voted off.

Blackburn's win means that the lion's share of the money raised by the millions of phone votes over the week will go to his chosen charity, the National Autistic Society.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's chosen charity, London's Chemical Dependency Centre, will get a slightly reduced contribution because the donation is based on the percentage of votes from the public. Palmer-Tomkinson took her loss graciously, saying: "Well done, you deserve it."

As he was joined last night by the seven other celebrities who have been voted off over the week - Palmer-Tomkinson, ex-boxer Nigel Benn, Geller, singer Darren Day, comedian Rhona Cameron, model Nell McAndrew and Christine, wife of disgraced former Tory minister Neil Hamilton - Blackburn commented with his usual understated calm.

He said: "It feels fantastic. I just cannot believe it. I do no training. I don't go to the gym. I am a vegetarian. I eat all the wrong things. I just found I could relax very much. With all the exploding atmosphere going on last week, I was beginning to get too tense last week, so I thought I would just lie back a bit."

Blackburn refrained from criticising his fellow contestants, like the others had done before him, saying only of Benn that he was "very macho, sort of thing - but I did like him".