The comic had been favourite with the public, bookies and his fellow contestants throughout the programme, but there was a surge of support for Burrell in the final days -- possibly fuelled by hilarious footage of the camp butler's bushtucker trials.
However, even the sight of Burrell munching his way through worms, cockroaches and a raw kangaroo testicle last night was not enough to shake public support for Pasquale, who reacted to the news in the same modest way he had carried himself during the show.
It remains to be seen whether Pasquale's victory will give him the boost from D-list panto regular to A-list star. His continual use of the cockney rhyming slang "Jacobs" is bound to raise suggestions that the cracker brand to which he is referring could offer him an advertising deal.
Burrell declared he was happy with being voted into second place, with hosts Ant and Dec claiming that it was the closest final in the history of the show to date, in what has been another success for ITV with audiences on ITV1 regularly passing the 10m mark throughout the run of the latest series.
Once the favourite to be booted out first, Burrell said that the outcome had "restored his faith in the British public and in human nature".
Third place was taken by the Irish nightclub owner and former Westlife bodyguard, Fran Cosgrave. He also began the series as something of an outsider for the bookies, but is understood to have garnered support in his native Ireland to make it to the final three.
Meanwhile, Janet Street-Porter, who made it to the final four of the series, has been attempting to explain her transformation from self-described "most hard-boiled, opinionated, aggressive woman in Britain" into an uncomplaining cook and cleaner in the camp.
Writing in The Independent, she claims that the show is designed to destabilise the contestants, and that it forces them into performing a "cabaret" around the campfire to win small treats.
"Everything is engineered to turn you into a gibbering wreck willing to make a complete fool of yourself for the edification of bored couch potatoes all over the country," she writes.
But she only has herself to blame, it seems. In the same piece, Street-Porter claims to have invented reality television in 1990 for a BBC show where she rented a house in Manchester and filled it with students.
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