With heart and hyaluronic acid – Djamila Rowe is the new “jungle queen”

First came the crown, then came the tears: the make-up artist and reality TV candidate Djamila Rowe won the RTL "jungle camp" in 2023. The 55-year-old, who got a place on the show via detours, collected so many viewer votes in the finale of "I'm a star – get me out of here!" on Monday night that she called the Australian bunk camp Queen could leave. That was quite surprising – especially for herself. “It can't be. They've miscounted!” she said. "Is that monitored? Like with a notary?”

In fact, in the last episode of the season, Rowe shook off two high profile men. First, the confident singer Lucas Cordalis ("I once showed where the hammer hangs. Papa has delivered.") had to bury his dream of following father Costa Cordalis to the jungle throne, which he had climbed in 2004. Then reality actor Gigi Birofio, who had enriched the jungle history books with many beautiful sentences ("My English is still shit"), could no longer keep up with Rowe.

The new jungle queen, who also brought in a prize money of 100,000 euros, could hardly believe her luck at first. The tears rolled down and a real handkerchief was not to be found. "I'm really overwhelmed," she admitted. In her first speech as regent, however, she regained composure and thanked everyone who had supported her. "Who recognized my true soul and didn't just pay attention to externals. Who saw what kind of person I really am,” she listed.

Rowe was only presented as a candidate shortly before the start of the show about two weeks ago, and her name was not on the original list of participants. She took the place of actor Martin Semmelrogge ("Das Boot"), who, according to RTL, was not allowed to enter Australia.

In recent years, the 55-year-old has been haunted by various reality formats, and she became known nationwide in the early 2000s as an "embassy slut" after a (fictitious) affair with the then Swiss ambassador Thomas Borer. Now, 20 years later, she had fought, among other things, in an RTL "jungle show" in Hürth to be allowed to move into the regular jungle camp, but only took second place there. Appearances in programs such as "Die Alm" or "Adam sucht Eva" adorn her vita.

In the jungle, Rowe had slowly but surely come to the fore. Fans and TV critics praised the 55-year-old as emphatic and down-to-earth. She showed wit, had many anecdotes ready and a good feeling for people. Among other things, she told of difficult childhood days in the GDR, in which she had also experienced hunger and abuse. In the jungle, she fights for her two children, says Rowe.

Even a pretty messed-up exam in the final couldn't destroy her status as the secret favourite. Rowe stuck his head in a tank that filled with water. But she quickly panicked and broke off - without a single star. Your two competitors fared significantly better. Fellow camper Gigi, for example, bravely endured a choking martyrdom during a food test, in which tears sometimes shot out of his face, sometimes the contents of his mouth that had just been fed in.

When looking for reasons for the debacle, the trained make-up artist Rowe then showed herself to be self-ironic as usual. Among other things, she pondered her rather voluminous lips, which had to enclose a snorkel. "There's so much hyaluronic acid in there," she explained. “Do you still have the right feeling to bite down this mouthpiece properly? Because there is dead material in here.”

As the queen of the jungle, the 55-year-old follows in the footsteps of jungle majesties such as Costa Cordalis, Brigitte Nielsen and Ingrid van Bergen. Her direct predecessor in "office" was reality TV contestant Filip Pavlovic.

It was the 16th season of the reality show. After a trip to South Africa in 2022, it was produced again in Australia this year. Presenter Jan Köppen, who led through the show alongside Sonja Zietlow and inherited Daniel Hartwich, was new.

Rowe, however, already has concrete plans for the next few days and weeks. “I need everything when I get out of here. My forehead is moving again," she said. "I need Botox."