It’s the reality TV show that gives a fly-on-the-wall peek at how celebrities – a term used here in its loosest form – look when they’re lounging on the sofa in their pyjamas.
But the bit of hidden-camera footage we’d have really liked to see this week is the one showing the reaction of the royal family as Gary Goldsmith, the Princess of Wales’s “bad uncle”, walked into the celebrity Big Brother house.
Goldsmith, the kind of errant relative for whom the phrase “every family has one” was surely invented, has long been a PR pain in the neck for Kensington Palace. In 2017, he was fined and given a community order after admitting he had assaulted his wife in a drunken argument.
Before that he was caught in a drug sting by the now-defunct News of the World newspaper. He allegedly offered undercover reporters drugs and Brazilian prostitutes in Ibiza, where he owned a home called Le Maison de Bang Bang.
Ironically, the reputational risk to the royals is relatively slim as long as Uncle Gary sticks to his own chequered past. It’s the headlines swirling around the Wales’s that the Kensington Palace press office will not want Goldsmith to inflame.
Love Island star (turned trainee investigative journalist) Ekin Su-Cülcüloğlu was first in with the awkward question: “Where is Kate?”
Goldsmith claimed to be in the know regarding the princess’s decision to take an extended period of medical leave but declined to give any further details. Good work from the bad uncle, the Kensington Palace press office will no doubt have noted.
On other matters, he has been less restrained. Catherine (formerly more popularly known as Kate Middleton) as “the commoner”, he said was nonsense. “Carole [the princess’s mother, and his sister] and I were both multimillionaires by the time we were 30. That’s why I get a bit narky when they say Kate’s a commoner. There’s nothing common about their family.”
As for the Duchess of Sussex? It’s “very unlikely” he’ll ever meet Meghan, he said. “I genuinely think they should take their [the Sussexes’] titles away.” A Christmas card from his niece may yet find its way into the post.
On Friday night, Goldsmith faced off against Real Housewives of Cheshire star Lauren Simons in the first live eviction.
So far, the palace will be relieved that he seems to have erred on the side of discretion and is coming across as eccentric but not wholly unlikeable. How much longer that can last, the watching public – and the housemates of Kensington Palace – will no doubt be waiting to see.
