There’s just one week to go until the newly-rebooted Big Brother crowns its winner, after beginning with a cast of 16 new housemates from more than 30,000 applicants.
Over the past few weeks, tensions have been steadily rising in the house between frontrunner Trish and Noky, and other remaining contestants including Chanelle, Olivia, Tom and Jenkin.
It’s now been revealed that a wave of complaints to TV watchdog Ofcom concerning the way Trish and Noky have been treated by some of their fellow housemates has built up in recent days.
These largely started when the pair were selected by Big Brother to secretly nominate three housemates over Halloween, after which Dylan confronted the pair.
Ofcom has confirmed to Metro that 768 complaints were filed after the episode that aired on 31 October, which showed Dylan and Trish arguing.
Nearly 100 other complaints were filed for the following night’s instalment, while 97 more were made specifically about the way that Olivia, Tom, Jenkin and Chanelle behaved towards Trish and Noky.
Of these complaints, 45 related to the argument that arose between evicted housemate Paul and Trish, which began after the latter referred to the former as a “bully” for the way he’d behaved towards Noky.
Two days later, on 3 November, another 161 complaints were lodged, including 62 about Olivia, Tom, Jenkin and Chanelle’s treatment of the pair once again, and a further 50 about Paul’s behaviour towards them.
This put the overall number of complaints into four figures, at 1,062 in total.
As is standard procedure, Ofcom will assess these complaints before deciding whether to take the issue any further.
Earlier this week, Big Brother host AJ Odudu called out remarks Tom made about Trish on the ITV2 companion show Late & Live.
“It is a shame… They do keep banging that drum, don’t they?” AJ said, before adding: “She said ‘bully’ one time, and how many times has he labelled her ‘aggressive’? I rest my case.”
A representative for ITV responded to HuffPost’s request for comment by pointing to Big Brother’s duty of care protocols, which highlight that housemates received “respect and inclusion training and an extensive briefing from the Big Brother senior team” before the show began to prepare them for “living in the house and to set out Big Brother’s expectation for appropriate behaviour and language”.
These protocols also point out that housemates’ “welfare is monitored 24 hours a day” and “daily meetings take place to discuss welfare matters and responded appropriately where required”.
Meanwhile, the guidelines also state that “mental health professionals are available to housemates for ongoing support throughout their time in the house”.
Production company Banijay also had no comment when contacted by HuffPost UK.