AS Celebrity Big Brother returns tonight, one of the show’s most controversial stars has revealed she was allowed to secretly leave the famous house – and the shocking scenes were never aired on TV.
Jemma Lucy sent shockwaves through the show when she starred in the 2017 series, having spats with everyone from Sarah Harding to Paul Danan – but one of her most dramatic moments wasn’t screened.
In an exclusive chat with The Sun, Jemma, 35, reveals she resorted to drastic measures to force bosses to let her sneak out into the outside world.
She recalls: “I think mentally I started to lose the plot in the last week. I was just a bit like, ‘Does the outside still exist? Is it even still there?’
“There was one time where I went to the diary room and I said to them: ‘Look, I just feel a bit like my head’s gone. Can I please just step outside the house, just for 5 minutes, so I can just see the real world? I feel a bit claustrophobic and I feel stuck and I feel like I don’t know what’s going on.’”
But model Jemma wasn’t happy with their response and flipped.
She adds: “They said no initially, they wouldn’t let me, so I kicked off. They didn’t air this, but I just remember throwing myself downstairs on purpose. And they were wooden stairs, not carpeted or anything, so I really hurt my back and I just was causing a scene.
“After that, they were like: ‘Alright, you can go outside for 5 minutes with the security guard.’ So they let me go outside and walk around the house within the studio complex. I didn’t see any production staff or members of the public, it was just so I could see that the outside word was still there. I am so grateful to the producers, as it got me through the last week. The production team were amazing”
Despite the drama, Jemma made it all the way to the final, where she finished in sixth place.
“Out of all the shows I’ve done, CBB is still my favourite one,” Jemma insists, although she claims producers have lots of sneaky tricks up their sleeves to cause maximum drama.
One of these includes allowing some contestants to get away with rule breaking while punishing others.
She explains: “I did notice that a lot of people would break the rules, but [producers] would pick specific moments for when to punish someone. I talked about nominations a few times and never got pulled up on it, then randomly someone would get pulled up on it.
“It’s like they pick the time when to punish you to suit the show. So if someone isn’t favoured by the other housemates and they talk about nominations, they they will punish the whole house with no food, so then everyone is even more p**ed off at that person.”
The former Ex On The Beach legend also claimed producers stirred up drama and manipulated arguments in secret diary room scenes that would never be shown.
“They would definitely wind people up, for example, when you’re in the diary room, they’ll say things like: ‘What do you think of what so and so said?’…. And then someone else will get pissed off and it is kind of like a Chinese whispers thing. Housemates tell you things that you’ll then tell someone else and by the time it’s exploded, it’s not even what the original thing was.”
She admits, however, that the contestants found cheeky ways to get their own back on Big Brother- especially when it came to the strict rules around booze.
“They were actually a bit stingy with drinks, I don’t think they wanted any kind of seriously drunk, sketchy behaviour,” she laughs. “There was a LOT of stealing drinks as a result. When they would give us alcohol, people would grab loads and then hide it in different places so we had more for another time.”
Celebrity Big Brother: The Live Launch airs tonight at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX
