Angellica Bell has been named the Celebrity MasterChef champion for 2017, beating Ulrika Jonsson and Dev Griffin in the nail-biting finale.
The TV presenter, 41, has said there are no hard feelings from her husband Michael Underwood – who reached the final of the show in 2012 but did not win – and that he is ‘so proud’ of her achievement.
Bell wowed judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with her three-course meal of a Camembert, fig and onion tart followed by a pan-fried halibut and prawns, and a pear Bourdaloue for dessert.
Winner! Angellica Bell walked away with the Masterchef win on Friday night
Before that, Bell, presenter Jonsson and radio DJ Griffin were tasked with taking part in the daunting Chef’s Table challenge, in which they had to cook a Michelin-star standard three-course meal hosted by three Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton.
Reflecting on the moment she discovered she had won, Bell told the Press Association: ‘I remember they announced the results and I literally think I was in shock for ages. I felt like I was in a bubble.’
She said she spent some time with the MasterChef team before realising she had to phone her husband to break the news.
Bell said: ‘My phone wasn’t on me, and once I got to my phone it had been ringing and ringing from Michael. He knew the timings because he’d done it before, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I won!’
‘And he was literally screaming down the phone. He was so happy, he was so pleased. And I think he was living all the emotions again, so he was chuffed to bits.
‘I think he was just really proud of me.’
Not so lucky: Her husband Michael Underwood starred on Masterchef in 2012, but only made it to the finals
Overcome: Angellica overcame the competition from Ulrika Jonsson
Bell said she feels she and fellow TV presenter Underwood, who have two children together, are still on an ‘even keel’ when it comes to their cooking skills, despite her going one better to win the BBC One programme.
‘Michael always says I’m the better cook, though,’ Bell said. ‘He says I’ve got a knack in terms of presentation and patience, that I’m naturally better.
‘He’s really good at precision … I’m a bit more experimental, and he goes a bit more by the book.’
Judge Wallace said of Bell’s success: ‘Angellica is one of the best Celebrity MasterChef contestants I have ever seen, her food has elegance and style.
Winner, winner: Angellica has claimed victory over her husband, after he took part in 2012
‘As the competition has gone on she has got technically better. I think she is a very, very worthy winner.’
Torode said: ‘Angellica makes sure everything that she does is done to absolute perfection. Throughout this competition Angellica has pushed herself.
‘Give her an opportunity to learn, she sucks it up and does it brilliantly.’
Bell said she would love to embark on food-related endeavours going forward and follow in the footsteps of previous Celebrity MasterChef winner Lisa Faulkner.
She hopes to learn more about Caribbean food and has been inspired by her gran, who was a cook, to try to learn and recreate some of her beloved recipes.
‘I don’t want to say, ‘this is what I want to do’, I just think if things come to me, I would definitely embrace them,’ she said.
‘I didn’t realise how passionate I was about food and how it can make you feel, how you feel preparing it and how you feel when you know someone enjoys it.’
Ulrika Jonsson’s first appearance on this year’s Celebrity MasterChef saw her looking a little pained; and she is the first to admit this.
‘When I watched it back I thought ‘Jeez I look miserable!’ But it was just my nerves,’ she told MailOnline. ‘It just meant so much to me. I have been cooking since I was 12, and it’s something that I love. It saved my mind.’
The 50-year-old told MailOnline on Thursday that the cathacism of cookery has been a soothing process for her – which is why she was terrified about slipping up.
‘Cooking has been a huge healer many times in my life. So I was really anxious about not making a mistake. Plus this was a foreign environment, and you’re being timed. It’s challenging on every front.
‘But as the series went on I could see my face softens. I stopped looking angry and miserable and like I was about to cry. It’s only because it meant so much to me.’
The ex-Gladiators host managed to battle through a disastrous encounter with a rack of lamb – an incident that narrowly saw her get through to the next round.
‘I looked miserable… but it saved my mind!’ Ulrika Jonsson says being on MasterChef soothed her after a battle with depression
Stiff competition: Ulrika retained that everyone on the show was a good cook – and that it came down to one person tripping up
‘I ran out of time and it was raw,’ she recalled. ‘If you’d have been at my house I would have said ‘hang on guys, it needs another five minutes’ but there was just no time to rescue it. I got so upset!
‘After the lamb incident, I was nervous, and I felt so blessed to still be in it.’
Ulrika retained that everyone on the show was a good cook – and that it came down to one person tripping up.
‘It’s in my very nature to be competitive with myself and I kick myself sometimes,’ she said. ‘And it may sound twee but I also couldn’t treat the others as enemies. If I had I would have screwed up – so I couldn’t really concentrate on beating them.’
A dream come true: Ulrika described being in the final as ‘awesome’ and admits she breathed a sign of relief when she got through
‘Healthy challenge’: Ulrika, pictured leaving the BBC studios on Thursday, said she was glad she has got involved in the intense cookery competition
Ulrika described being in the final as ‘awesome’ and admits she breathed a sign of relief when she got through.
‘If I were to do the show again, I would try and enjoy it more – it’s hard and tough but all the way through I would have to remind myself ‘come on you can cook!’
‘It was cathartic to focus on the food and not woes and issues. It was such a healthy challenge to take on.’
Will it be an Ulrika moment? The TV stalwart hopes to take the 2017 Celebrity Masterchef title