I’m A Celebrity’s Richard Coles reveals the heartwarming approach he met his late husband as Danny Jones shares how he he knew his spouse was ‘the one’

I’m A Celebrity‘s Richard Coles revealed the heartwarming way he met his late husband David on Monday night. 

The former reverend, 63, made the candid confession during an emotional discussion with McFly’s Danny Jones. 

The pair were discussing how they knew their partners were the one for them when Richard explained it took him a little while to realise his former husband was even interested in him. 

Richard tragically lost his husband, fellow priest David, 43, to alcoholism in December 2019 – nine years after they married – and said part of him had been destroyed by the loss during a ‘paralysing’ period of sadness.

But despite his grief, the TV presenter told Danny the adorable way the pair met. 

He explained that David had heard him preach a sermon before ‘picking him up’ after Church. 

He added that he hadn’t even realised he was romantically interested in him until he received a special text from him. 

Richard said: ‘I came to preach a sermon in his church and he sort of picked me up afterwards!’

Elaborating, he said of David: ‘He heard me preach and afterwards he said that he was thinking about getting ordained and could he come and talk to me about it. So he came round one Sunday for lunch and it was all very proper and professional’.

He then explained how they talked and talked but Richard had to dash off to church, so David asked if he could come and talk to Richard again. 

As Richard agreed they’d sort something in a month or six weeks, he got to church and his phone pinged, and it was a text from David saying: ‘Don’t you get it?’.

Richard then joked that that was when the penny dropped.

Singer Danny, 38, also shared the romantic way he met his wife Georgia Horsley.

The musician explained: ‘I met her at a Miss London event which I got invited to.’ 

Finding out she was from York, he told her ‘I’ve been looking for a Northern girl.’

He went on to say: ‘It took me a year to get her, I invited her out for a roast!’. 

He said after the event: ‘I text her in the morning and she said, “Sorry I can’t make it” and then weeks went on, she didn’t make it, she turned me down and I gave up in the end and then 11 months later she text me saying, “Do you wanna go out for a drink or something or get breakfast?”.

Danny then told Richard how he picked her up and took her to the waffle house in St Albans.

Richard asked: ‘Did you know by then? If she was gonna be a contender?’

Danny replied: ‘Absolutely man, I was gutted! She was just a best mate, had a laugh, great girl.’

When Richard asked why he wanted a Northern girl, Danny said: ‘I felt comfort in a Northern voice, it felt more like on the same page. Even though we’re not on some things because she’s very Yorkshire and I’m very Lancashire!’.

Richard’s candid confession comes after the TV personality revealed in 2022 that he was heartbroken by David’s death. 

He said at the time: ‘I was absolutely with David through thick and thin, and I was with him till the very end.

‘If you really love someone, part of you is destroyed when they die. I don’t want to pretend that’s not the case. I sometimes feel the tension that I will leave him behind.

‘And I would never have left him behind. I feel a tinge of disloyalty in living more life without him.’

Before his husband’s death, he and David lived with their dogs Daisy, Pongo, Audrey and Horatio in the vicarage of St Mary’s in Finedon. 

Richard has since found love again with actor Dickie Cant but he won’t be flying to Australia to greet him because of work commitments.

Of entering the jungle, he said: ‘I will miss my partner a lot and of those I have told, they all think it’s hilarious I’m doing this. They have told me not to talk too much – especially first thing in the morning.’

Richard met actor Dickie, who is is the son of the late actor and Play Away presenter Brian on the dating site Elite Singles which is for people who are ‘serious about dating’.

Explaining his choice of dating site, Richard said last year: ‘I wanted to go on a website where I would meet someone who was not looking for a sugar daddy, who was my age, who lived in my sort of world, who I could share my life with.’

In his memoir, The Madness of Grief, Richard wrote about living with someone in the grips of alcohol addiction – and the ‘paralysing’ period of sadness that followed.

And it has been an emotional time in the jungle lately as the stars, seemingly missing home, discuss their romantic and family lives. 

On Sunday, Maura Higgens revealed she was missing her boyfriend, former TOWIE star Pete Wicks. 

When asked by Oti Mause whether or not she was single, the Love Island star, 33,replied: ‘I am but I was seeing someone before I came in but I’m not in a relationship.’ 

Reverend Richard then asked: ‘Was it exclusive? Or if I’ve put you on the spot, sorry!’, to which she replied after a long pause: ‘I dunno’.

After being quizzed on if it was someone the public might know she answered coyly: ‘Yeah’ before admitted that she was missing him since entering camp.

Maura admitted that she thought she had never been in love, Richard described looking for his late partner David in a crowd and feeling his heart go, as Dean said: ‘I know that feeling.’

The Radio 1 DJ then asked about her current situation: ‘Does it feel different this time?’

Maura answered: ‘It does, but then is it because we’ve known each other for a long time?’

Richard added: ‘You’d know if he was an a**hole or not, by now, as the stunner smiled to herself, and replied: ‘Yeah, he’s not an a**hole.’