Brian Belo has been named winner of this year's Big Brother, beating the bookmakers' favourites, twins Sam and Amanda Marchant.
The 20-year-old data entry clerk from Basildon, Essex, has won the Channel 4 reality show's £100,000 prize.
"How I've done this I don't know," Brian told host Davina McCall. "I came for the experience and I've had that."
Tree surgeon Liam McGough, 23, came third, while former boy band member Ziggy Lichman, 26, finished fourth.
Brian, whose unassuming charm won him thousands of fans, chanted "oi oi" to the crowd as he left the house.
FINAL BIG BROTHER POSITIONS
He said he would give his prize to his mother and the first thing he would now do would be to buy a bottle of cider.
After famously saying in the house he did not know who William Shakespeare was, he told Davina he was a director who made Romeo and Juliet.
Brian received 60% of the votes for the final two places. "I don't deserve to win... this is so mental," he told the twins after the result was announced.
Sam and Amanda, who agreed to be counted as a single contestant for nominations and votes, chanted Brian's name after leaving the house in joint second place.
The 19-year-old sisters from Newcastle-under-Lyme were known for their excitable and inoffensive natures. Sam said the Big Brother experience was the "best thing ever, love it so much".
They went throughout the whole series without receiving a single nomination from fellow housemates. "I can't believe that, it's so sweet," Sam said.
Liam had 19% of the vote when the count for third place was taken. He had already secured £100,000 after being selected by three of his fellow housemates.
He said he was embarrassed by the decision. "I didn't feel like I deserved it," he explained.
BB'S MEMORABLE MOMENTS
Ziggy got 15% of the vote when the fourth place reading was taken. On leaving, he was immediately asked about his relationship with fellow housemate Chanelle Hayes.
"We had a kiss and a cuddle, that was about it," he told Davina.
"She looks amazing, absolutely gorgeous," he said, blaming their split in the house on his "paranoid stage".
But the pair indicated they would get back together now the show is over.
Carole Vincent, 53, came fifth and 36-year-old Jonty Stern was in sixth place in the show's eighth series.
Jonty received 3% of the vote and Carole had 5% when the first count of the night was taken.
Ladbrokes spokesman Nick Weinberg said: “We were desperate to get the twins beaten as they would have been a shocking result for every bookmaker in the land.
"Brian has been our knight in shining armour. Had he not won we'd have been selling the family silver."
Viewing figures for the reality show have been down, with an average of 3.8 million watching this series compared with 4.5 million last year.
The show started 13 weeks ago with an all-female house. In total, 23 contestants and one fake housemate walked through doors of the Big Brother compound.
Despite cancelling the next series of Celebrity Big Brother in the wake of the race row involving Shilpa Shetty earlier this year, Channel 4 has confirmed a ninth series of the normal Big Brother is in the pipeline.
Auditions for Big Brother 9 will start on 24 November and will call at Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham, Dublin, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and London.
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