As much as we are living for the cast of TOWIE series 33 and their wild antics in and out of Essex (bless, though – the fake tan was RUNNING in that Bali humidity), we will always have a soft spot for our TOWIE series one OGs.
We're talking Mark Wright, Lauren Goodger, Amy Childs (tbf, both of them are back back BACK in the fold, baby), Sam Faiers, James 'Arg' Argent and, of course, Nanny Pat (RIP) and her sausage plait.
What a time for telly.
Another one of those iconic OGs was TOWIE playboy Kirk Norcross, who recently confessed to Closer that he was "earning big from TOWIE" back in the show's heyday.
While we've always had a lot of love for Kirk – who was last seen on TOWIE’s eighth series back in 2013 –there's no denying a huge part of his storyline was, erm, making his way around Essex (which included taking Amy on a zoo date which, over a decade later, still lives rent free in our minds).
That being said, for a major chunk of his TOWIE stint, Kirk dated fellow reality telly legend and "love of his life" Lauren Pope before they called it quits in 2011.
Popey may have been the "love of his life", but it seems that in the here and now our Kirk has well and truly had his head turned (sorry, wrong show) and found love with new girlfriend Ashton-Leigh Randall, who he hard launched on Instagram this weekend – and, of course, she's STUNNING.
Sharing a gorgeous pic of them together in his car, Kirk wrote, "Sometimes you meet a person and you just click- you’re comfortable with them, and you don’t have to pretend to be anyone or anything 🥰."
At the time of writing this, we aren't even 24 hours into the hard launch of Kirk's new relationship, so we don't know a huge amount about this blonde beauty just yet other than she works as a senior claims specialist and her Instagram is set to private (fairly common in the wake of a high-profile hard launch like this).
Kirk last spoke out about his love life in 2021 when it was confirmed that he was dating a woman called Tanika Watkins. The pair went Instagram official, with Kirk vowing to spend “the rest of his life” with Tanika.
“I’ve been single for two years and I seriously didn’t think I’d find someone. But I finally have found someone who is as good for me as I am for them. Actually, she is probably a bit too good for me,” he told his followers at the time.
Tanika was Kirk’s first public girlfriend since his relationship with Danielle Louise Carr, the mother of his son, Harry. Kirk also has a daughter called Violett from a previous relationship with Holli Willis. Kirk proposed to glamour model Cami Li following a whirlwind romance in 2013, but she confirmed they had split later that year.
And we've mentioned Popey already, haven't we? Phew.