A family who previously appeared on Gogglebox have spoken out over their 'disappointing' experience on the show after finding out that their contract wasn't being renewed.
Chantelle Walker, her mother Elizabeth and sister Monique, from London, appeared on the Channel 4 series back in 2020. But after only appearing in a small handful of episodes, Chantelle, 26, claims that the family were met with "silence for months" when they suddenly disappeared from the show as bosses put them on hiatus, the Mirror reports.
According to Chantelle, producers told them that there weren't "enough cameras" to film the trio tuning in to the TV highlights of the week, and they later found out that their contract wasn't being renewed. "There was silence for a while and we didn’t know what was going on for months. Then they dropped us, which was a shock," Chantelle admitted.
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She told The Sun: "It was a really good experience doing Gogglebox... but it was a bit disappointing, I feel like we should have had more airtime but they chose to use less of us."
The family aren't the only former Gogglebox stars who have allegedly been ditched from the show, with even famous faces not safe from the chop according to actress Dame Sheila Hancock. Sheila, 90, said that she was "not asked back" to Celebrity Gogglebox after she put in a request to show bosses to watch fewer TV shows with nudity.
Sheila revealed: "I think it was because there were a lot of shows with penises in, and because it went down [well] with the audience, they kept showing them to us. Eventually I phoned up the lady on the edit and said, 'I am enjoying the show, but do you think we can have anything other than penises?' and she was quite angry."
Fellow Celebrity Gogglebox star Maureen Lipman, who appeared on the show alongside Gyles Brandreth before Sheila, also departed the show for the same reason. Speaking out about her exit, Maureen, 76, said: "I went in imagining that they wanted me for my wit and my brain. Of course, they just want to show you willies and for you to be shocked."
Several Gogglebox stars have decided to part ways with the series themselves for a number of reasons, from family fall-outs to break-ups and new career ventures. Read more about some of the most famous exit stories from the Channel 4 series here.
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