Had the Big Brother hunk scored the winning goal in an All-Ireland football final he couldn't have expected a more rapturous welcome back to his home village of Greencastle, Co Tyrone.
Dancing on the roof of a white stretch limo, Thomas McDermott was mobbed by more than a thousand ecstatic locals last night.
He wore a T-shirt which bore the name St Thomas but he was treated more like the Pope.
His five-week stint on Big Brother - Channel 4's Orwell-influenced TV programme - turned the computer technician and part-time farmer into a superstar. It didn't matter that his eviction from the Big Brother house last week had lost him the £70,000 prize.
Tommy, Our Man from Tyrone is the title of the charity single recorded by a local schoolteacher in his honour. It played incessantly throughout the celebrations. Round here, Tom is everyone's Big Brother.
Greencastle pulled out all the stops. A massive billboard was plastered with his picture, and a marquee, hung with four chandeliers, was erected in a nearby field. An Order of Malta ambulance was parked at the crossroads - "just in case," said one organiser, "any of you women faint."
He was only half joking.
Already showing admirable media savvy, Tom greeted the press in the local credit union office. He said he hoped he had given a positive image of Northern Ireland through the programme. And he wasn't worried about the money.
Contracts for modelling, a movie career and TV presenting were all being offered since his eviction.
Asked whether he was embarrassed about a much-discussed scene in the programme in which he was obviously relishing giving a massage to one of the other contestants, he said it was "natural". The skimpy red shorts he was wearing at the time is due to be auctioned for charity.
His worst moment during the series came when he was nominated for eviction and he saw his mother standing outside the house but could not go out to talk to her. "I'm still in shock," he said of the intense media attention following his departure.
Waiting to catch a glimpse of Tom earlier, local man Fintan Loughran said the Greencastle man had done very well for the parish. "We're all very proud," he said.
But it was the local women who appeared most impressed. "He's gorgeous, I love his eyes," said one besotted teenage girl. "Oh, and his personality, of course," she added.