The Fortune Hotel winners offer to share prize money

What did you miss?

Jo-Anne and Will won The Fortune Hotel but gave some of their prize money away to Aysha and Samm.

To many viewers the mother and son team had become the villains of the show after they played dirty throughout the game. But after reaching the final three of the ITV gameshow they bared their souls to their fellow finalists and won their sympathy with emotional confessions, revealing Jo-Anne had battled cancer after nursing Will's father on his death bed.

In a tense final Night Cap in the Lady Luck bar all three couples decided to stick with their own case, and Jo-Anne and Will opened theirs to find it contained £200,000.

What, how, and why?

Jo-Anne burst into tears on learning she had won the prize money. Will said: "There are no words to describe the emotion running tough my body. I feel like I've been struck by lightning." Jo-Anne said: "It will make a difference to my life, it won't change me." She joked to Will: "You can have a longer shower now. It is a life-changing amount."

Friends Jae and Cherish revealed they had managed to take £30,000 from the case during the course of the game, as rules state you can opt to bank £10,000 if you ended the day with the briefcase containing the cash. Aysha said: "After all the times we have known where the money is, we never had the opportunity to take it."

Will told the married couple: "Aysha and Samm we want to give you £5k out of ours so you can do what you want with your kids. You deserve it just as much as the rest of us." Jo-Anne added: "You can take our babies away."

At the start of the final episode Jo-Anne and Will revealed their difficult past, after losing Will's father to motor neurone disease, and Jo-Anne being diagnosed with cancer. Jo-Anne revealed that though she had separated from Will's father, she had returned to care for him before he died.

She was then diagnosed with cancer nine years ago, but was given a new drug which was successful in helping her overcome the illness. She said tearfully: "I'm just so grateful to be here. I would like to donate to the cancer hospital that I went to. It's a building full of angels really, they're the most amazing people ever."

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Will, 19, broke down as he confessed he he felt guilty about the way he had behaved and treated his mother growing up. He sobbed: "Everything I've learnt from life, whether it be my dad or my mum, anything can get taken from you at any time, so just do what you need to do when you can do it. I knew my dad was going to die and I thought I wasn't going to have my mum either. I've made her life not easy to live. I think it's time I pay it back, make up for the time she's lost having to worry about me."

Will told Jo-Anne: "I feel guilty for it all the time. I've never said it to you but I'm sorry for it and I regret it. Doing this has opened my eyes so much. Maybe sometimes I am in the wrong."

All the contestants were in tears and Cherish admitted she regretted some of the things she had said about Will and Jo-Anne "in the heat of the game".

After they were declared the winners, Will said: "There's no bond like it, the bond of family, and that bond has favoured us in so many ways. Would my dad be proud? My dead was fighter and he'd definitely be proud.

Cherish said: "I'm very happy for Will and Jo-Anne because they don't build people like Jo-Anne anymore. She's a fighter, she's an inspiring person." Samm said: "I feel happy, it's amazing to see Jo-Anne and Will win. They deserved it."

The ITV reality contest began with ten couples competing for a jackpot prize of £250,00. Every night they had to swap cases, eight of which were empty, one which had the money and one which had an Early Check Out Card, sending the owner home. Jae and Cherish started the last day with the money, and Aysha and Samm knew they had it. But Jo-Anne and Will were in the dark as to which rival couple's case had the money in.

In a final twist the cases were locked and labeled and no one was allowed to look inside them before the final Night Cap in the Lady Luck bar. Jo-Anne and Will won the Room Service Challenge and were able to swap their name label before the evening's swap, without seeing inside the cases. So none of the couples knew for sure which case contained the money. But Jo-Anne and Will had chose to swap with Jae and Cherish, making them the winners.

What else happened on The Fortune Hotel?

The Fortune Hotel gave a nod to The Traitors in the final.

When the series launched on ITV earlier this month some complained it was a "cheap knock off" of BBC show hosted by Claudia Winkleman, and there are oblivious parallels between the gameshows. The show was prerecorded, but host Stephen Mangan must have been expecting the comparison.

In the tense final, as the three final couples were racing to the finishing line of the last task to give themselves the advantage in the final suitcase swap, Mangan looked out to see through a pair of binoculars and exclaimed: "Oh my God! Is that Claudia Winkleman's super yacht?!"

Viewers loved the joke. One wrote one social media platform X: "Loved the little Claudia Winkleman nod in #TheFortuneHotel. I appreciate when a show is self-aware." Another said: "Lovely little nod to The Traitors there from Stephen! #TheFortuneHotel" One commented: "I liked that Claudia reference. They know it’s so similar to The Traitors lol. #thefortunehotel" And another posted: "I love how this show isn’t afraid to take the p**s out of its likeness to the Traitors #TheFortuneHotel"

The Fortune Hotel is streaming on ITVX.