Well, there you have it. Just three episodes into Celebrity Big Brother, and the hit reality series – blithely exhumed by ITV in 2023 after its dismal original run came to an end in 2018 – reverted to its ugliest form: a platform for bigotry and raw offence. Mickey Rourke, the faded Hollywood star whose tenure on the show seemed pre-destined for disaster, produced one of the most objectionable spectacles British television has seen in years.
Speaking to JoJo Siwa, a gay 21-year-old influencer turned pop act, Rourke joked that she “wouldn’t be gay any more” if he remained in the house with her for four days. After declaring that he was “going to vote the lesbian out real quick”, Rourke said that he was going outside to smoke a “fag”, before turning to Siwa and remarking, “I’m not talking to you.”
The barrage of homophobia here might be unsurprising from Rourke, who just two days earlier had been condemned for “ogling” and “groping” Celebrity Big Brother presenter AJ Odudu within seconds of his introduction to the series. That Rourke would come out with such brazen chauvinism befits a man who spent much of Tuesday's episode acting like he barely knew where he was, or why he was there. He seems like someone who should be kept away from cameras, for his own benefit as much as everyone else’s. The blame for Wednesday night’s grotesque and regrettable night of television must fall principally on ITV, whose decision to cast Rourke on the show cannot be justified.
In a statement provided to The Independent, a spokesperson for ITV said: “All Housemates receive Respect and Inclusion training and an extensive briefing from the Big Brother Senior team to prepare them for living in the House and to set out Big Brother’s expectation for appropriate behaviour and language. Housemates are monitored 24 hours a day and instances of inappropriate behaviour are dealt with appropriately and timely.”
The incident has, at least, punctured the ornate fiction of progressiveness that has ballooned around reality television. While the format’s innate, exploitative malevolence in years past has come to be widely acknowledged, there is now an insistence that things are different. Procedures have been put in place, safeguards erected. The dismal days of Big Brother past – when, for instance, Indian contestant Shilpa Shetty was subject to racial abuse during the 2005 season – do not reflect modern TV viewers’ sensibility. Reality TV has listened, and reality TV has learnt.
Rourke’s episode has more or less eviscerated this notion. There is no reasonable justification for airing his remarks, or for allowing him to remain on the show. The fact that he was reprimanded by the “Big Brother” figure and handed a formal warning – and the fact that he will most probably be evicted from the series during Friday night’s episode, with Siwa having previously been handed the ability to pick a housemate to face eviction – is immaterial. He should have been gone there and then, with the footage never allowed to be broadcast.
It may well be that Rourke didn’t think he was being hateful; his remarks were the sort of lazy, witless “jokes” that are often told simply to provoke a reaction rather than curry violent bigotry. But people are right to be appalled. Giving them airtime on a major TV channel is unforgiveable; the TV corporation equivalent of “retweets don’t equal endorsements” isn’t going to cut it. This is ITV’s scandal, and they must own it.
Earlier this week, after the first episode of the new series premiered, The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky wrote that Celebrity Big Brother felt “particularly bleak”, and that it was time for the series to be “put out of its misery”. If only we could have known back then: those were the salad days.
