IT’S the return of one of the small screen’s most famous franchises – with contestants poised to enter the Big Brother house this Sunday.
And while the housemates are yet to be unveiled, two people guaranteed to be front and centre are new hosts AJ Odudu and best pal Will Best, who says his dad remains unimpressed by his career choice.
Joining me at Bizarre HQ ahead of the big launch, Will jokes: “My dad has always worked in charity and he wanted me to go to Oxbridge and work for a think tank and contribute to society in a positive way.
“When I quit advertising to become a TV presenter that was a little hard for him to compute.
“Then I was like, ‘I’m hosting a show called Suck My Pop’ and he started to short circuit.
“Then my first job was having my nipples waxed by Katie Price, who then gave me a full body spray tan with me wearing a pair of paper pants.
“I had to chase her car down in front of a load of paps, wearing just the pants with a streaky tan.
“The pictures appeared in the Press. They described me as a crazed fan.
“Dad rolled his eyes and said, ‘If it makes you happy’.”
Will landed his first gig on screen at 23, joking that he had “the right haircut”, but admits his career floundered after a good start — but he has now returned with this major gig.
He explains: “I got the first job I went for at MTV then landed my dream job at T4 a year later.
“You just don’t think about being at the back of a queue at that time.
“But I’m into my 30s now and I have stared into the abyss and know the universe is a cruel place. There have been setbacks.
“I was incredibly lucky at the start and everything I tried had worked. I got this totally unrealistic view of what it takes to make it in telly.
“I was doing youth telly and music TV and had a couple of shows at once. But I started getting calls from my agent cancelling them one by one.
“I used to joke I was cancelled before it was even a thing!”
He quips: “I was lucky in that things did come along and I had my first taste of prime-time with Dance Dance Dance with Alesha Dixon.
“It was a great show let down by its host — Alesha was s**t! Ha, I promise that’s a total joke, she was lovely.
“But she did laugh at me because I tried to dance on telly and it came out as a cockney walk and I looked ridiculous.”
So Will is well prepared for Sunday’s live launch on ITV1, where he and AJ will unveil the housemates and set — with no choreography.
He adds: “That is the beauty of Big Brother. You don’t have to be a dancer or a singer, you just have to be interesting.
“We need to get people who wouldn’t normally meet. That is where the friction comes from.
“The interesting thing in terms of a social experiment is that people these days are defined by their opinions.
“We’ll see conversations that are happening around the country played out in front of everyone. It’s holding up a mirror to society.
“I’ll just try to be there as an enthusiastic viewer too.
“I won’t be doing all the laddy banter stuff they used to have me doing on T4.”
The hosts have yet to meet this year’s housemates, but are optimistic that even with newly cautious sensibilities there will be no need to over-sanitise the series.
Will, who also owns drinks range Bloody, specialising in canned Bloody Mary drinks, explains: “I won’t be handing over my own drinks in case they don’t like them, but yeah, there will be some alcohol, but it will all be properly thought out by the production team.
“There is a duty of care for everyone on the show, whether they are behind or in front of the camera, because it is intense.
“You want everybody involved in it coming away thinking it was positive and they had a good time, including the viewers.
“But it is still unfiltered, unproduced telly, and it is going to be f***ing live.
“I still know nothing about the housemates, I will find out on the day. We are just the conduit, we are experiencing everything like the viewers.
“When we speak to them in the exit interviews we will be asking the questions the public want to know because we are viewers too.
“They’re big shoes to fill after (former BB presenter) Davina McCall made it her own, but we’re excited and we want it to be the best it can be — and we’ll throw everything at it.”
