I’ve been on Big Brother twice – you won’t believe what went on in the toilet during the final, says Ulrika Jonsson
HEARING the iconic sounds of the Big Brother theme tune blaring out during an ad break of the Love Island final has got me – and probably the rest of the nation – chomping at the bit.
The reality show is coming back and I just cannot wait.
For my sins, I endured TWO stints in the Celebrity Big Brother House.
Initially urged on by my ex-husband, who thought it would be the ultimate challenge for someone who suffers from claustrophobia and doesn’t much like being around people, I decided to be locked in a house full of strangers for a few weeks.
But fundamentally, of course, it was the money which talked. It would have been obscene to have turned down that kind of wonga.
I can’t deny I was terrified. Not only was I leaving my children behind — the youngest of whom was only seven months old. The separation anxiety was intense. Also, I had no idea what to expect despite it being January 2009 and the sixth series of CBB.
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Being a viewer is entirely different to being a housemate.
The contract for my engagement was a sizeable bible of rules, which in itself induced fear and panic not least because the very last page read: “Big Brother has the right to change the rules at any point”. So that was reassuring.
I was pretty dumbfounded for the first few days and struggled to function properly.
I clung to actress Tina Malone (of Shameless fame) — not only was I a fan of hers, but she was savage and I knew she’d have my back.
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Then there was former Page 3 girl, Lucy Pinder, who offered a welcoming sense of normality.
Essentially, though, we were all weirdos in our own, special way.
Initially, you think you’ll all stick together, but in no time the cracks started to appear.
There were clashes of personalities and tensions building, even about the most mundane minutiae.
La Toya Jackson, sister of Michael, had it in her contract that she didn’t have to sleep in the same bedroom as us mere mortals — she had her own room.
Kinda defeats the object of us all being “in it together”.
And the poor, delicate flower could only eat smoked salmon so even when they removed our food and cut our shopping budget, we were all forced to sacrifice cereal so that the bloody diva could have her smoked salmon.
No, I’m not bitter. Much.
I shared a bedroom with Tina, Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton, Ben Adams from boyband A1 and American rapper, Coolio.
Coolio basically farted his way through the series, made lewd comments and tried it on with most of the women.
He was uncomfortably misogynistic and ended up having a massive, chauvinist fight with Tina, after telling her to “shut the f*** up”.
From that point on, it became men against women. The late Austin Powers actor Verne Troyer — who everyone seems to admire greatly — was actually not a particularly nice person.
I mean, it could be that he just detested me because I tried to mother him and help him out too much when he, naturally, wanted to display his independence.
I admit it was unhelpful then that I wanted to pick him up and hold him because I missed my son so badly.
Not my finest hour, agreed.
Licking crisps
To redeem myself, I guess my duet with Verne (whose singing was truly the most horrific I’ve ever heard) of Endless Love — with me as Diana Ross and him as Lionel Richie — was surely one of the most iconic moments of that series? If not some of the others, too.
The lovely Michelle Heaton was nothing but sweetness and light, but in a bid to avoid eating too many carbs she would sometimes be found licking crisps and then putting them back in the packet and throwing it out. I guess it takes all sorts.
I buried my agitation and discomfort in housework. Then they turn the hot water off, take your food away and blast the air-con on so everyone’s uncomfortable.
They make you do nothing all day, so you get bored and get aggy with each other. All of it done to manipulate and challenge your behaviour.
I was up for eviction every single time and prayed to every God I could think of that I would be sent home — but alas, in the end, I was the last person to walk out.
Not before having to endure some of my weed-smoking housemates puffing away in the bathroom on the night of the final.
And if that whole experience wasn’t punishment enough, I was then asked eight months later, to re-enter the house for The Ultimate Big Brother — the programme’s final send off from its birthplace: Channel 4.
That was a whole new experience of pain. And drama. And appalling behaviour. This time they brought back people from all the previous series in what became a cauldron of clashing egos and utter madness.
The lovely, late Nikki Grahame brought incredible theatrics; Brian Dowling just hilarity and Nadia Almada — previous winner — who was not good company.
Oh, and then there was the defiant and irreverent John McCririck who walked around in his saggy, oversized, yellowing underpants just to cause a stir and then eventually refused to talk to anyone (including Big Brother) because they wouldn’t supply him with his Diet Coke.
He took no nonsense and was a sexist, old b*****d, but I kinda liked him.
Vanessa Feltz came in after a few days and railed against Big Brother for keeping us bored for days at a time. An intelligent woman who clearly hadn’t read the bible of rules of this painful game.
The funniest of all was surely my former housemate Coolio, who stole all of Nadia’s shoes for a practical joke. What he didn’t know was that Nadia doesn’t do practical jokes. Nor does she do anything of which she’s not in control.
I’ve never known such loud drama. You’d think someone had been murdered. This was exacerbated by a wholly defiant Coolio calling Nadia, who was a trans woman, “it” rather than her.
This was a step too far. And he was booted out.
Thing is, all this turmoil, tension and melodrama gets us all involved as viewers and no matter how uncomfortable it is to watch, it’s wholly absorbing.
It develops the partisan in all of us — we pick sides and we rile against the opposition. It excites us.
And if this brilliant series is to have another shot at the big time, it really is going to need a revamp.
I only hope the producers can keep a semblance of all the drama that’s gone before and that they won’t “woke” the hell out of it.
God help them if everyone will be told to behave appropriately, respectfully and will be forbidden from saying certain things because I fear that may take the oxygen out of the very living creature that is Big Brother.
We’re all living through tricky times, to say the very least. Entertainment will be our solace.
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And maybe, just maybe, Big Brother could bring a little light at the end of what’s undoubtedly going to be a very long and dark tunnel.
I think we could all do with a bit more of this Gangsta’s Paradise.
