Davina McCall Insists She Has 'No Idea' About Big Brother's Rumoured Return To Channel 4

Davina McCall has insisted she has “no idea” about a potential Big Brother revival, following rumours the show is to return with her at the helm.

The Daily Star recently claimed that the show’s original presenter had been in “secret talks” with Channel 4 to revive the celebrity version of Big Brother in 2021.

This came after she fronted the Big Brother: Best Shows Ever series of specials with Rylan Clark-Neal on E4 last month.

However, Davina has now downplayed the speculation, telling HuffPost UK she had “absolutely no insight whatsoever” on Channel 4′s potential plans. 

She said: “TV is in such turmoil at the moment, as far as what’s going to be made and what’s not going to be made.

“I’ve got no idea if there are any plans on the table for Big Brother, all I know is that I loved presenting that show with Rylan.”

Davina, who hosted Big Brother during its original run on Channel 4 between 2000 to 2010 before its move to Channel 5, also clarified recent comments she made during an appearance on Scott Mills’ Radio 1 show, where she said she would say yes to fronting a revival.

She explained: “Basically Scott said to me ‘if it came back, would you do it?’  and I said ‘yeah of course I would’ – that’s because me and Scott are massive Big Brother fans.

“But it’s not like I’ve sat down and really thought about it and decided to make an announcement to say ‘I want to host Big Brother again’ – it’s not like that.”

Davina admitted that the experience she had as part of Best Shows Ever had felt “like the old days”, but added that bringing Big Brother back could prove to be “difficult”.

She said: “From 2009 to 2011, my inbox and Twitter was spammed incessantly with Big Brother tweets all day and all night, and literally the first show goes out of Big Brother’s Best Shows Ever and again, my Twitter feed is literally spammed full of Big Brother fan sites and everything. It was just like the old days, I was like ‘oh my God, this is nuts!’

“So it was really good fun and it did fire up a lot of people. But bringing a show back is always difficult, because you look back at all those old shows – Big Brother could never be like that again.”

She added: “Some of the stuff that happened in the shows back then might not happen now... We live in a different world to 10 years ago, so who knows what shape Big Brother would be in if it came back. It’s a funny one.”

Big Brother was hosted by Emma Willis prior to its cancellation by Channel 5 in 2018. 

Davina, Rylan, Emma and former Little Brother presenter Dermot O’Leary all reunited on Best Shows Ever last month, which led to former housemate Brian Dowling speaking out against the show. 

Brian claimed they were “trying to rewrite history” after the presenters failed to mention his time hosting Big Brother when it first moved to Channel 5 in 2011, sparking a Twitter exchange between him and Davina.

The full interview with Davina for HuffPost’s What Works For Me Series, where she talks about mental health and meditation, will be published on Sunday. Headspace x Boots gift cards are available from Boots.com for £30, and come in one of four content themes Mind, Health, Sleep and Focus