Pete Wicks addresses Maura Higgins romance rumours

Pete Wicks has finally addressed rumours of a romance with Love Island and I’m a Celebrity contestant Maura Higgins.

The reality TV stars have been romantically linked since June last year, with Higgins publicly admitting that she had kissed the Towie star during her time in the Australian outback.

However, since then the pair have been evasive about the nature of their relationship, with Wicks, who recently finished Strictly Come Dancing, also batting off speculation about dating his co-star Jowita Przystal at the same time.

“Maura and I have known each other for a long time now, about six years,” Wicks told the We Need to Talk podcast.

“We have the same sense of humour, she’s super intelligent and I think that is sometimes what people don’t realise about Maura.

“She’s incredibly witty and we have always been there for each other in the past six years at a distance where we have always kind of been friends and been there for each other and whatever else.”

But he hinted: “And that I mean is different now.”

Wicks admitted: “We spend more time with each other than we did before. I think she’s an incredible person, she was incredibly supportive to me when I was in Strictly and as I did to her when she was in the jungle.

“She’s a great person so my relationship with her is that I think she’s a great person and I hope that she would think that I’m alright.”

Asked by host Paul Brunson, “Are you great together?”, Pete did not deny rumours as he joked, “Oh I see where we are going with this Paul, it is very, very nicely done. The thing with me and Maura is, like I said, we have known each other for a long time and we have never kind of not got on.”

Explaining why he has decided to be more private about his love life, Wicks said: “I’m at a different stage in my life now where the points that always made me known, which was always my relationship or the drama and the reality background, is not something that I am really doing anymore.

“The reason I say that and I’m very thankful to all of the things I’ve done before that but now is the private me and the more vulnerable me is that I’m putting out one version of me which is why I need to protect that.

“I no longer feel the need to have to give everyone that.”