Hollywood actor Lou Diamond Phillips was crowned I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!'s champion during Wednesday night's live finale broadcast of the NBC reality competition.
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"The winner of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! 2009 is.... Lou Diamond Phillips," co-host Damien Fahey announced.
"Lou Diamond Phillips is the King of the Jungle, congratulations to 'LDP,'" Damien added as he directed Phillips to sit in a large wooden throne chair and co-host Myleene Klass placed a wreath crown on the actor's head.
"This experience has proven to be so much greater than I expected it to be," Phillips said in a video clip that aired before his victory was revealed. "I expected it to be a competition. I expected it to be hard. What I did not expect was the emotional bonds that we've created, the foundation of relationships that will go on from here."
"When I leave this jungle and go back into the other [real world] jungle I think I will actually go back strengthened by the knowledge that I can do what I set out to do. My experience in this jungle has been complete," he added.
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Phillips defeated former WWE wrestler "diva" Torrie Wilson and retired NBA player John Salley to win I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!'s "King of the Jungle" title. His victory was determined by home viewer voting that took place after Tuesday night's I'm a Celebrity broadcast.
In addition to making an impression with viewers, Phillips had also proven very popular with the rest of the show's celebrity cast, who voted him the group's initial leader and then opted to keep him in the position when it was time to determine the camp's next leader. After his second stint, the show's producers announced Phillips would be unable to serve in the role again (Salley subsequently won a challenge to determine who would be the second -- and final -- celebrity to serve in the leadership role).
Salley was the first of the three remaining finalists to be eliminated from the finale based on the results of Tuesday night's voting results, leaving Phillips and Wilson to face-off for I'm a Celebrity's crown.
"The public has decided and voted and I can honestly tell you two that it was incredibly close. Incredibly close," Fahey told the pair before revealing Wilson Phillips' victory.
"Congratulations, you deserve it," Wilson told Phillips as she immediately embraced him.
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The show did not reveal Phillips' exact margin of victory.
Thirteen celebrities competed in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, a Big Brother-like competition that required the celebrities to compete in food, reward and immunity challenges and attempt to campaign for home viewer votes while spending 24 days living at a primitive campsite in the Costa Rican jungle.
In addition to Phillips, Wilson and Salley, former American Idol finalist Sanjaya Malakar; former supermodel Janice Dickinson; Patti Blagojevich, the wife of indicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich; Baldwin brother actors Stephen Baldwin and Daniel Baldwin; "Frangela" comedy duo members Frances Callier and Angela V. Shelton; and The Hills stars Spencer Pratt, his new wife Heidi Montag and her older sister Holly Montag also competed on the show.
(Photo credit Tyler Golden/NBC)
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