Don your ear defenders because the explosive series comes to its noisy climax on Friday night as Calum Best, Katie Hopkins, Keith Chegwin, Katie Price and Michelle Visage compete for the title. So what have we learned from four weeks of rows, removals and Hilton v Hopkins?
1. Disclaimer warnings just whet viewers’ appetites
Most nights, CBB has been preceded by: “Warning! Contains offensive language and adult chat from the start,” causing viewers to rub their hands with glee. On special occasions, this has escalated into: “Beware! Constant use of extremely offensive language and scenes of violent confrontation,” which is code for take your phone off the hook and hunker down.
2. Patsy Kensit is a sweary Yoko Ono
The serial rock wife and Edina from Ab Fab-alike’s bons mots included: “I’m meditating, fuck off” and “Give peace a fucking chance”.
3. Alex Rude, more like
When Katie Price was discussing her ex, Alex “The Reidinator” Reid, Kavana brought up the issue of anal sex. Price casually revealed: “I couldn’t put enough up there. A lot of straight men like to have the pinkie up there but Alex wanted it all.” Pass the mind bleach.
4. Keith Chegwin’s a bit hurty
Cheggers quite literally played pop by casting himself as the house’s father figure –but nearly “did a Les Dennis”. Obsessed with housework and constantly cracking wince-worthy jokes, he was half-Brent, half-Partridge, all fragile, with his crumply sadface and Diary Room blubbing. He clawed back some dignity late on by standing up to pantomime horse Katie Hopkins.
5. Reality celebs have become fully self-aware
With the genre a decade old, contestants know exactly what they’re doing. The two Katies, Hopkins and Price, were canny about their roles – stirring and sexual revelations respectively – and duly delivered. Chats were had about fees and media work. Perez Hilton took this to extremes by constantly speculating about what “the Briddish public” wanted to see, encouraging “showmances”, and referring to Hopkins’ “brand” and himself as “a producer’s wet dream”. In the Diary Room, he wailed: “I’ve tried to be professional here.” And, when warned by BB for his behaviour, treated it like a script edit: “I will take your note.”
6. Michelle Visage started strong but faded
RuPaul’s mate shot into an early lead by being a maternal protector in those mad first few days. She later lost ground by aligning herself with Hatey Hopkins and boring on about how Perez was “letting down the community”, rather than just himself. Although he eventually did let down the community by comparing his stint in the house to “being diagnosed with Aids in the early 80s”.
7. Producers have been watching I’m A Celeb with a notepad
ITV’s annual jungle juggernaut gets ratings of 10m-plus, so why not borrow some of its ideas? CBB’s letters-from-home task, waste-pipe challenge and extreme eating all had a strong whiff of Bushtucker Trial. All that was missing was an Iceland ident. Yum, beef garland.
8. Kavana needs a role in Corrie
Apart from “farting in an Egyptian style” and singing aloud viewer tweets about himself (“hashtag twaaaat”), pop has-been Kav’s finest hour was his secret task, in which he had to break down in tears and dupe housemates into hugging him. His sob stories about homelessness and a dead bloke called Alfonso showed admirable acting chops.
9. Katie Hopkins started and finished surprisingly well – but reverted to type in between
Contrary to all expectation, the rent-a-troll began as a voice of reason. Gradually, though, she took up her rightful place as mayoress of “The Mean Girls”, persecuting Perez and goading Cheggers, Pricey and Nadia Sawalha into arguments. In the closing days and with the scent of victory in her flaring horse nostrils, she has thawed again – and confessed that she flashes at her husband from the bedroom window every morning. Is there any of that mind bleach left?
10. Katie Price says no to Europe
The orange fembot formerly known as Jordan was bussed in as a reinforcement after all the ejections and walkouts. She proceeded to have no privacy filter whatsoever, chatting happily about septic breasts, Anus Reid’s alex – sorry, Alex Reid’s anus – an ex so well-hung it hurt and finding boyfriends in bed with other women (“mingers”, obv) – all in that strangely flat robo-voice. She said her only regret was doing Eurovision. Not the divorces, sex tapes or exploding boobs, then?
11. Calum Best is a chilled-out entertainer
House himbo Best (George’s son and author of the magnificently-titled memoir Second Best) sat around in pristine leisurewear, spouting pass-agg transatlantic bro-speak: “It’s all good, dude … The guy’s been a douche from the get-go … Don’t throw that shit at me, buddy.” He finally exploded and called Perez the c-bomb, a “piece of shit”, a “wankstain” and threatened to “ruin the dude … shut your ass down and break you, bro”. But not before reiterating: “I’m a chilled-out guy.” Sure sounds like it.
12. Pre-broadcast tests and screening aren’t as stringent as they might be
Ken Morley got ejected for racism. Baywatch berk Jeremy Jackson, a meth addict who’s been in and out of rehab, got gropey and was also removed. Alexander O’Neal and Perez Hilton hardly seemed stable. The screening process appears to have become more relaxed since the franchise migrated from Channel 4 to Channel 5 four years ago.
13. Alicia Douvall has pork boobs
Described as “dumb as a bucket of rocks” by Alexander O’Neal, duck-faced Douvall revealed she’d only recently learned the alphabet. Yet her most memorable admission was that after 18 boob jobs, her breasts are now reconstructed from pig’s skin. “This one’s got loads of pig in,” she said, indicating her left. Was it our imagination or did it oink in agreement?
14. Perez Hilton is one of the best/worst housemates ever
The donkey-dentured gossip harridan is clearly not someone you’d want to spend time with. Hilton is a screeching, sulking, rulebook-wielding, limelight-hogging Tyrion Lannister lookalike who spouts bile, psychobabble and is about as sincere as Calum Best on a nightclub meet ’n’ greet. Yet there’s no denying “The Perez Show” made compulsive car-crash viewing, whether he was dancing naked around the garden and dry-humping the windows, locking horns with Darth Hopkins, shoving cheese up his nose or baiting housemates with a mouthful of spaghetti, like The Ood from Doctor Who – all the while clutching that ever-present red-capped sippy cup like a Satanic toddler. The diva claimed in his exit interview that “The Perez Show” was a defence mechanism. Chinny reck-on.
15. Never to watch CBB ever again
Well, at least until the next series in August. And maybe the civilian one in June.
