From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishin the fleshin the fleshPERSONALLY/YOURSELFif you see someone in the flesh, you see someone who you previously had only seen in pictures, films etc He looked much shorter in the flesh than on television. → flesh
Examples from the Corpus
in the flesh• I shall have travelled away in the flesh from that wretched court - light years away by then, light decades.• John and Joan decided that they should meet Alexander Atkins and his colleague in the flesh.• Charles Tekeyan believed that this feeling is solely a matter of continued excellence in the flesh.• Michael Jordan was my hero, and meeting him in the flesh was a real thrill.• But you want to know what he's like, in the flesh?• He had never meant to reclaim or re-create her, not in the flesh.• That is, not in the flesh.• I saw her outside the TV studios - she looks much older in the flesh.• But now their enmity found its target in the flesh.• As to the miners, before I saw them in the flesh, I would see them in photographs. 