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Louise Thomas
Editor
Big Brother viewers have already granted “icon status” to one specific housemate.
During the live launch on Sunday 6 October, the show’s hosts Will Best and AJ Odudu introduced a new group of 16 housemates in front of a studio audience – but it is 20-year-old Lily, a Chinese takeaway server from Warrington, who is winning over viewers at home due to her “chaotic” vibe.
One viewer said online that Lily is the housemate that harks back to the original Channel 4 era of the show from 2000 to 2010, which saw contestants like Jade Goody, Nikki Grahame and Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace become fan-favourite housemates.
“OBSESSED with Lily,” one person wrote on X/Twitter. “Everything about her screams Channel 4 housemate. Slagging off the other girlies and threatening to get with a fit lad already. She’s going to be CHAOS.”
“I love Lily already. It’s like she’s on fast forward. She’s so haphazard and full of personality. She just says whatever pops into her head,” said one viewer, as another wrote: “Lily is going to be a fan favourite, she’s wild and definitely going to wind the other housemates up with her constant talking.”
Another added: “Whether she winds up being annoying or hilarious, I just know Lily has it in her to reach iconic housemate status.”
One viewer said Lily is “absolutely the lass you’d love to meet in a club loo on a night out”.
Others have said Lily already knows the aim of the game because she is doing her best to test the patience of her fellow housemates.
“Convinced Lily is a mole and has been recruited to wind up everyone BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY,” said one viewer.
Ahead of her Big Brother debut, Lily said that if she wins, she wants to spend the prize money on “a party holiday to Ibiza with a private jet”. She said: “I just want to rinse it all because I wouldn’t have it anyway.”
Other contestants include a 24-year-old climate activist Daze, a 23-year-old sales manager Khaled and a 26-year-old NHS administrator Martha.
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The show has already faced criticism for its lack of age diversity in the new season, with the majority of the contestants being aged between 20 and 30.
The oldest housemate is 53-year-old aesthetics business owner Emma, who is the only person on the series over the age of 40.
Fans have been quick to complain that housemates look as though they’ve auditioned from a “university dorm”.
One viewer joked online that ITV accidentally “approved a list of Love Island applicants as Big Brother contestants”, referring to the channel’s popular reality dating show that features contestants between 20 and 30.
Another person asked: “Where are the older housemates?! Where are the people of different classes?”
The show initially made a comeback to screens for a reboot on ITV2 in 2023, having previously been cancelled by Channel 4 in 2010 and Channel 5 in 2018.
