James Haskell has thanked fans for their support following his I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! exit.

The rugby star became the fourth celebrity to get the boot from the ITV reality series on Tuesday night.

Following his exit, he posted a message on Instagram alongside a photograph of himself topless while he ate pizza and drank beer.

He wrote: “Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me! Sadly I didn’t make the cut but I loved every second of my @imacelebrity experience!

“The most important thing to me is the opinion and respect of my fellow camp mates, with whom I have lived for the last 17 days. I was truly touched and humbled by their reactions this morning in camp.”

The sportsman also thanked fellow jungle evictees Andrew Maxwell, Adele Roberts and Cliff Parisi for “their amazingly kind and generous words to me today”.

During his nearly three weeks in the jungle, Haskell clashed with some of his camp-mates, notably branding the campsite a “circus of stupidity” after he and Maxwell disagreed over a challenge.

Broadcasting watchdog Ofcom also received 78 complaints after viewers objected to comments he made when he appeared to describe Ian Wright as having a “clubfoot”.

Haskell, who was embraced by his wife Chloe Madeley as he left the jungle, told the show’s hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly about his hardships in camp.

He said: “My body started to shut down actually bizarrely… Caitlyn and I, the oddest relationship in the history of the world, we’re like an old married couple.

“She just orders me around all the time and we do all the washing up together, so I was up and down the stairs all the time and I was just burning a lot of calories, obviously all the adrenaline, all the walking to go to the trials, and my legs, the evening and afternoons I couldn’t really concentrate, I couldn’t focus, I had nothing in my legs.

“I was getting very tired, but I didn’t want to overly complain but I really struggled.”

I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! continues on ITV.