Big Brother star Hughie Maughan is calling for the “life changing” UK show to return to television.
He believes that the reality series should make a return as it is “a completely real show” compared to Love Island.
His comments have come after Celebrity Big Brother Australia is set to launch on E4 in February.
He told Dublin Live: “Big Brother is the original reality TV show. It’s the show I grew up watching, it was such a huge part of my life and it completely changed my world. It gave me the opportunity to be my own person and make money in other avenues that I would never have had the chance to do without the show.
“The experience I’ve had allowed my family to see me as myself with the unique opportunity to have that distance at the same time. It’s like I went away on a holiday but my family was able to watch me.
“It was before Instagram blew up too, before the influencers, the looks. I did it in the perfect year. It changed my life and that’s why I'm so loyal to the show and because I’m a big fan.
"I love the honesty of the show, there’s no production involved, you don’t get told what to do and Love Island do, conversations are set up and they see producers every single day, I didn’t see one until I left the show, you never see them in there.
“It’s a completely real show., in there you forget about the cameras and fall into yourself, and I’d love to see it come back, and I’d love to see Rylan hosting it.”
Hughie highlighted that Big Brother displays a wider variety of contestants from different backgrounds, and that’s why he thinks it should return to our screens.
He said: “Coming from a Traveller family, there’s a lot of cultural stereotypes, cultural suppression that happens and racism towards travellers.
“But what comes from that is a community that has a certain set of traditions, values and cultural beliefs that still go on in today's world. It allowed me to grow as a person and broaden the minds of my parents. I’m still the same son but it made them understand.
“Love Island isn’t about finding love, it’s just a concept used for a show. The show is about glamour. It’s diabolical viewing if you ask me, I love the drama. The show isn’t diverse, it’s not a representation of society.
“It has changed peoples lives, so for that reason I’m really happy, I’m not saying that the contestants don’t deserve the money or fame, it’s more to do with the producers."
The runner-up of the 2016 series thanks the show for the opportunity as people are still interested in his life six years later.
If Big Brother comes back it’ll blow everything out of the water, it was all over the papers years ago. One of the reasons Big Brother did so well for me was being Irish and the fact that we don’t have much reality TV in our country or many reality stars, especially in 2015 before Love Island was a big thing.
“It’s fantastic that my storyline of being from the travelling community and being gay made people really interested in me and have respect for me rather that what I looked like and if I was coupling up on TV.”
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