The results are in! Here’s who you voted as the biggest reality TV icon of 2023!

This week, we presented our shortlist for the biggest reality TV icon of 2023. I pulled from far and wide to get a rundown of the people on everyone’s lips this year for everything entertaining they brought to the table – and you all voted in your thousands. It was a close call, but the results are in. May I present the top five! Scroll to see the winner you crowned the reality TV icon of 2023.

5. Kate Butch (Drag Race UK)

The people’s princess of Drag Race UK season five, Kate Butch finished her season in fifth place and has taken fifth spot in our top five thanks to your votes – beating out stiff competition. Potentially the only time Kate may be able to say she’s beaten Sasha Colby. So happy for the success and love Kate Butch has received from the fandom – a real character, an amazing sense of humour and a bit of an icon all round.

4. Ella Morgan (MAFS UK)

Ella Morgan made history on Married at First Sight UK as the first transgender bride to ever be cast on the show. She put herself out there in a time that’s increasingly more difficult for trans people, as the right wing government and media peddle untrue narratives to demonise them. But Ella showed on this show that trans women are normal women – for all her faults, messiness and drama she is no different to any other women there. She will have shown countless viewers what trans people are really like, and I’m so happy to see her be voted in fourth.

3. Sam Thompson and Tony Bellew (I’m A Celeb)

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Earning the bronze medal in third place is King of the jungle Sam Thompson and new best pal Tony Bellew. I semi boycotted this season of I’m A Celeb to protest Farage’s inclusion, but the clips I saw of this random but endearing friendship makes it so apparent why they’ve done so well in this poll – just joyous to see the two wildly different blokes be so fond of each other.

2. Yinrun Huang (Big Brother)

Via ITV

She stole the nation’s hearts, and she’s in second place: Ar Yinrun. Just the perfect Big Brother housemate in so many ways. Genuine, thoughtful caring – but also hilarious, eccentric and full of warmth. So many Yinrun moments defined this year’s Big Brother revival and really showed what made this show so successful in the first place: Platforming ordinary people who have quirks you’d miss if you weren’t watching them at all times. Legendary.

1. Whitney Adebayo (Love Island)

It’s a close one, with just seven votes separating her from Yinrun in second – but your winner of reality TV icon 2023 is none other than Whitney Adebayo, who stormed into Love Island this year as a bombshell who was going to prove why they used that word for late villa arrivals. An instant icon who truly did not give a fuck about being anything other than herself, Whitney secured her man and should have secured the win with him. Funny, loyal, savage and a truly original Islander who never felt like the cookie-cutter influencers they normally shove in. It’s giving baddie, it’s giving winner of The Tab’s reality TV icon 2023

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