Jungle love comes to an end for Katie and Peter

'Let's shag!' 'Let's not even go there.' With that Benedick and Beatrice-like badinage, a love story so predictable it was actually endearing began in the Australian jungle between Peter Andre, a pop star whose fame had long faded but whose tan remained proudly burnished, and Katie 'Jordan' Price on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here in 2004. And yesterday, that story, which has been watched by millions thanks to their fondness for sharing their marriage with OK! magazine and ITV2 cameramen, officially ended Photograph: Cameron Laird/Rex Features

'[Andre and Price] have requested that the media respect their families' privacy at this difficult time,' a spokesman said yesterday, a man clearly fond of belatedly shutting stable doors. Some might think this an end fitting for a relationship that began on a reality TV show. Yet one can't help but muse sadly how never again will we see a music video with Andre and Price playing Disney characters and singing A Whole New World to each other Photograph: ITV/Rex Features

Like Benedick and Beatrice, theirs was a romance played out in public, with Kerry Katona acting as their unlikely Hero, cheering from the sidelines on I'm a Celebrity. There were also obvious similarities between the two: a shared love of fake tan, a bold manner of speaking about one another's anatomy Photograph: Rex Features

But unlike their Shakespearean antecedents, neither had ever engendered much public affection on their own – until viewers watched them fall in love on I'm a Celebrity, with a tentativeness few might have expected from either of these mutual fans of toplessness Photograph: Fred Duval/FilmMagic.com

The modesty of their gestures – a peck on the cheek, a nervously held hand – smacked of two virginal teenagers flirting as opposed to ones who, in the case of Price, had not that long before spoke of deflowering Gareth Gates Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

It is often said a celebrity ­couple is a greater whole than the sum of its parts. But this celebrity couple not only increased one another's fame, they seemed to make one another genuinely happy, which is not something you can often say about celebrity couples Photograph: Chris Harding/Getty Images

Next to them, the Beckhams looked like emotionless PR constructs Photograph: Simon James/WireImage.com

They took all the cliches about celebrity and blew them up to G-cup proportions Photograph: Fred Duval/FilmMagic.com

As well as getting married in a castle, Price wore a gown that looked like she had nicked it from Disneyland, with added cleavage Photograph: Anwar Hussein/WireImage.com

Their children were given names that would make Bob Geldof blush: Junior Savva Andreas and Princess Tiaamii Photograph: Amy Graves/WireImage.com

Yet between all the self-publicity and plastic, there was something almost real to them. Andre has frequently been pictured carrying Harvey, Price's child from her relationship with Dwight Yorke, whose illness makes him very large and heavy, and he railed against Heat magazine for its cruel sticker of Harvey Photograph: MJ Kim/Getty Images

The more a couple talks about their relationship, the less happy that relationship is Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Yet when Price and Andre talked about their marriage, they talked about the difficulties within it. Such honesty gave their marriage a reality that no reality TV show managed Photograph: Ken McKay/Rex Features

Andre once said: 'I never expected to find love in the jungle. Just goes to show you never know what might happen' Photograph: Niki Nikolova/FilmMagic.com

Fans might say the jungle love was the predictable part; that the public ended up caring about them was the surprise Photograph: Eamonn McCormack/WireImage.com