James Jordan: “I was in the Big Brother house with Jedward and Louis Walsh was being nice when he called them vile…”

And then there were six… A brutal double eviction on Tuesday night saw Marisha Wallace and Zeze Millz miss their chance of making it to the Big Brother final, leaving Louis Walsh, Fern Britton, Colson Smith, Bradley Riches, David Potts, and Nikita Kuzmin as this year’s finalists. As the series draws to a close, former Celebrity Big Brother housemate, James Jordan, sits down to speak exclusively with Betfred to recap on the happenings of the final week in the Big Brother house where he jumps to Louis Walsh’s defence about his controversial Jedward comment, sends words of advice to Ekin-Su after her stint in the house resulted in a PR disaster, and gives his take on the first series back after six years off the air.

Big Brother clearly didn’t go to plan for Ekin-Su and has transpired into a PR disaster. Do you believe ITV have done her dirty in the edits? And as she remains in hiding, what advice would you give to her to bounce back from this?

“Have ITV done her dirty in the edits? I don’t think so, I really don’t. I think she was trying to play a bit of a clever game instead of staying true to herself, that’s the impression I got anyway, and I would consider myself as a pretty good judge of character.

“Obviously you don’t want anyone to get any backlash from trolls, but I don’t think the show did her any favours, although I did agree with her family's statement about asking the trolls to back off. I can watch the show and have my opinion, but that doesn’t mean that I’m then going to go and contact her directly and tell her what I thought of her.

“It’s a really difficult one, I don’t know exactly what these trolls are saying to her, but I know there are a lot of horrible people out there, although some people think they are being trolled when others give them an opinion. For example, if someone said to me ‘I didn’t really like you on Big Brother,” I’d simply think ‘okay, fair enough,’ that’s not exactly a problem because it’s just someone’s opinion, and I would say a troll is when someone continuously comes after you.

“We have tried to stop trolls, but they just don’t seem to be stopping, so we have to ask ourselves ‘how do we stop a bully?’ by teaching people reliance and mental toughness and I don’t think that’s a thing anymore. I do think with the younger generation, we do need to teach them a little bit of mental toughness because I’ve had trolls and people come for me online, and for me personally, it’s like water rolling off a duck’s back.

“However, I do understand that not everyone is like me and different people react to things differently but I do think at the likes of school, teachers do need to teach children how to be more resilient and state the reality that there are going to be a lot of not nice people out there who will come for you and say nasty things about you.”

“The only advice that I can give Ekin-Su is that the most important people are the ones who are close to you, your family, your friends, and it doesn’t matter what these keyboard warriors type to you. Why do celebrities let these comments get to them so much? Because you don’t know these people, they’re just basing their opinion on an edited show. They don’t know you, they don’t know what you’re really like and I do feel sorry for her.

“Did I think she was good for the show? Yes, she was great for the show. Do I think she deserved to win? Probably not, I think it was her time to go when she got evicted. However, you know what you’re signing up for when you do this. It’s Big Brother, it’s not like she signed up for Strictly Come Dancing, they’re two different shows. So, if you’re signing up for a show like Big Brother, you do have to understand that there are going to be some repercussions. I knew that when I signed up, I’m not an idiot. So, I would say to her "just don’t worry about what the trolls are thinking, focus on what your family and friends think and just crack on.”

On a similar note, Lauren Simon spoke out recently about her experience on the ‘Late & Live’ after show and branded it as ‘tortuous’. As someone who has featured on the show many times, how daunting is that experience after you’ve just left the house?

“They’ve changed the format since I was on the show, so they have it now that you just go straight on to the after show, whereas, when I was in the house, I did my interview straight away with Emma [Willis] and it was part of the live eviction.

“I’ll be honest, I haven’t even tuned into the after show once, I haven’t seen any of the interviews and I think a lot of people are doing the same. I think it's a shame that they’re not doing the interviews as part of the live show because then I would have watched all of them.”

As tensions rise between Nikita and Fern, viewers have been quick to label Fern’s reactions to Nikita as ‘dramatic’ and ‘over the top’. Do you think Fern’s emotions are authentic or do you believe this is a tactic for her to gain more screen time?

“I know Fern personally, and I’ve spent a lot of time with her during the Strictly Come Dancing tours. It’s no secret that I really like her, and she’s been nothing but lovely to Ola and I, so I can only judge her based on my personal experience. However, there have been certain moments where I have cringed to myself a little bit and thought ‘Oh Fern, oh no, don’t do that.’

“At the same time, with Nikita, although he was paying her a compliment, Fern has seen that as a backhanded compliment. For Nikita to say ‘Oh, do you know they’re in fashion?’ is a backhanded compliment. I know people may look at that differently, but the point is, Fern has taken offence to it.

“I do feel when I watch Big Brother, even when it comes to picking people for the challenges, the last two people left are Fern and Louis, the two oldest contestants on the show. You can see a clear divide with the age of the people that are in the house. However, what I find fascinating is, the most interesting people that have been in the house this year are the older ones, in my opinion.

“When Sharon was in there, she was brilliant, interesting and a massive part of the show. Louis, whether you like him or dislike him, for me he has been the most entertaining person in the show. And now Fern, whether you like, dislike, or think she is playing a game, she has become one of the more interesting people in the series, so I find that interesting as well, but there’s a definite age divide in the house. You’ve got the young and you’ve got the old.”

Viewers were also very critical of the St Patrick’s Day challenge twist, which saw Louis Walsh be granted immunity from eviction and essentially given a one-way ticket to the final. Do you believe this was a fix and how fair do you believe this twist was?

“No, I really don’t think it was. Everyone is always very quick to jump and label things as a fix; you see the same thing with Strictly Come Dancing, too, but I definitely don’t think it was a fix. Put it this way, if you sit down and think about this really hard, when the producers decided that they were going to do this snake challenge, do you think they really knew whoever went there, unless it was Louis, that it was going to go in Louis’ bed?

“If they didn’t want people to think it was a fix, they wouldn’t have done the challenge at all. I think they did it just to stir things up a bit. Do I think it has backfired on them a bit? Possibly, because people thought Louis was at risk. Louis wasn’t going anywhere anyway; all those proper Big Brother fans were going to keep Louis in, because with him in the show, in my opinion, it was going to be a pretty boring series.

“So, I do believe that no matter what happened, if Louis had been up for eviction, he would have been saved because the hardcore Big Brother fans would not have let him go. So, I just think people are jumping to conclusions and I actually liked the twist, although I do think Fern was thrown under the bus a little bit because she thought she was evicting him which obviously would have made her feel guilty. Then she would have been thinking about what the public were going to think of her and how to act about the situation.

“I don’t think anyone in the house quite realises how that would be playing on her mind; let’s say for instance that this task was given to Nikita, Bradley, or Colson, who cried when he was labelled as the most boring housemate. Obviously, I think guys are a bit different from when I was younger and probably more in touch with their emotions, but I would never cry if someone said that I was boring.”

Talking about emotions, how easy is it for your emotions to become heightened in the Big Brother house?

“Oh, so easily because you’re always second-guessing yourself a little bit, and I think that’s part of the reason why I love Louis so much. Yes, sometimes he says things where I’m like ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe he just said that’, but he’s not really that bothered. Even with the whole snake situation, he was saying ‘oh, you b*tch’ and is quite catty, and I just find him really entertaining.”

I know you think very fondly of Louis Walsh, however, do you believe that he may have crossed the line when he branded Jedward as ‘vile’ alongside calling out Ronan Keating, and how do you think these comments will impact him once he leaves the house?

"I don’t know Ronan Keating so I can’t comment on his remarks about him, but I have been in the house with Jedward and they are vile, so I think he’s hit the nail on the head. Actually, I think vile is quite a relaxed word; I would use a lot stronger words when describing Jedward. I was in the house with them, and I’ve done other shows outside of Big Brother with them as well, so it’s not like I’m basing my opinion on one encounter. So personally, I think Louis hit the nail really hard on the head with that comment.”

You’ve very openly backed Louis Walsh to win the series. Once favourite to leave is now favourite to come back home a winner. What do you believe changed for Louis Walsh, and why do you think the public's opinions have shifted so much?

“I’m not saying that Louis Walsh is the nicest, sweetest person in the house, but what I am saying is that he has been the most entertaining. Is he the nicest person there? Probably not. Nikita, Colson, David, and Fern all seem like lovely people and they’re all playing the lovely game. However, I could have gone into Big Brother and just sat there, not being true to myself, be lovely to everyone, and if there’s a bit of controversy say to myself ‘my agent told me to be nice, don’t cause any trouble, just get through it, take the money and keep smiling.’ Anyone can do that, and that’s why I think kudos to Louis for being himself.

“It’s also the exact reason I started to really like Zeze as well because I felt she was true to herself, and I was actually gutted when she was evicted. I thought she was a great housemate and wasn’t just playing the nice card and seemed like a decent person, and when there was a bit of controversy, she wasn’t afraid to give her voice and opinion, and I do believe that some housemates in there are playing the nice card and are afraid of upsetting anyone. They look around and question if they have said or done something wrong, and I believe some of them are not being themselves in there.”

Finally, what have you thought about this year’s series and cast overall? With this being the first celebrity series back after six years off the air, do you believe the show still captures the essence of Big Brother?

“I think it has been a great line up. When the cast was first announced and when they first entered the house, I was unsure, but I actually think it was a great mix of people in the end. Louis, for me, has been the most entertaining overall, and I don’t understand the people who are saying it will be a fix if he wins just because there are nicer people in the house, in their opinion. Who is the most deserving winner? For me, it’s Louis. I’m not saying that you must like him; I’m just saying he deserves to win because he has brought the most entertainment.”