James Blunt has thanked his fans after securing his first UK number one album in almost two decades, just weeks after missing out on victory on The Celebrity Traitors.
The 52-year-old singer recently featured on the BBC reality game show, hosted by former Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman, but was banished by fellow faithfuls Sebastian 'Bash' Croft and Romesh Ranganathan towards the end of the finale.
Finale drama on Celebrity Traitors
During the tense final of the second-ever series of Celebrity Traitors, viewers saw social media star and Traitor King Kenny turn on fellow Traitor, Love Island host Maya Jama, in the final roundtable, leading to her banishment. Romesh then wrongly accused singer James of being a Traitor in the endgame.
With a deadlock vote between banishing Kenny or James, Romesh and Bash were given the chance to confer, and Romesh changed his vote, trusting Bash's theory that Kenny was a Traitor and James was a Faithful.
With Kenny gone, the pair decided to end the game. However, after Romesh blindsided James with his accusation, the You're Beautiful hitmaker decided to banish again, leading to Romesh and Bash voting him out and winning the game, banking £83,000 to be split between their chosen charities - Choose Love and Refugee Council.
Airplane Mode tops the charts
Back to his day job, James released his eighth studio album – titled Airplane Mode – on Friday amid the hype surrounding the TV show. He previously admitted he signed up for the second series of the programme's celebrity spin-off to promote his new music rather than play the game to make it to the end.
The 12-track record has flown to the top of the charts and secured the singer his first UK number one album in 19 years, according to the Official Charts Company. His last album to achieve a UK number one was All The Lost Souls in 2007, while his 2005 release Back To Bedlam spent 10 weeks at the summit.
Blunt thanks fans
Following the news of his number one, James told the Official Charts Company: "I can't tell you how grateful I am to every single person who has gone out there and downloaded, or bought, or streamed my album. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much."
The achievement follows a light-hearted promotional campaign during which Blunt vowed to legally change his name to Ryan Air if the album topped the charts, as a nod to the budget airline.
Elsewhere on the album chart, Royal Blood sit at two with Dead Company while Olivia Rodrigo is at three with her chart-topping record You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. Skepta is at four with The Fork And Knife – his first solo LP in seven years – and rounding off the top five are rock group Kings Of Leon with their self-produced studio record O My Beloved.
Over on the UK singles chart, Welsh singer-songwriter Jamie Miller has secured a fourth consecutive week at the summit with Babydoll, closely followed by Ashe, who is at two with Stop The Wedding! They are joined by Canadian singer-songwriter Tate McRae, whose single Housewife has placed third, while Sienna Spiro is in fourth place with Great Expectation. Completing the top five is US singer-songwriter Sombr with My Body Isn't Ready.
