When ITV resurrected Celebrity Big Brother in 2024, after this ailing format had languished in TV purgatory for more than half a decade, it seemed to promise a bright new era for a show that has always suffered from a bit of an image problem. Yes, it lacked the sequins and sob stories of Strictly. And it couldn’t lay claim to the high stakes and hardships of I’m a Celebrity. But there would be devious twists! A decent budget! And, as a consequence, proper celebrities! It’d have the camp factor of the previous seasons that aired on Channels 4 and 5, but with ITV’s financial heft behind it, to blow away the faint musty smell of desperation that had always clung to CBB.
What they gave us, though, was pretty underwhelming. Last year’s season amounted to countless hours of X Factor gruesome twosome Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne being snide, Ekin-Su from Love Island refusing to talk about Love Island, and Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary getting voted off at the first possible opportunity, after making the most cursory jibes at Meghan Markle. It didn’t exactly feel like essential viewing. In fact, it says a lot that the most exciting part was watching social media clips posted by Walsh’s one-time X Factor protégés Jedward, in which they – joined, for some reason, by TOWIE’s Gemma Collins, a wonderfully memeable CBB contestant herself, back in the Channel 5 days – watched and criticised their former mentor.
