In 2016, UK broadcaster Channel 5 made the decision to remove English actor and the cultural relic Christopher Biggins from the 18th season of Celebrity Big Brother after he made a series of offensive comments.
A statement from the broadcast at the time said that the decision had been made after Biggins, the vocal supporter of Thatcherite politics that he is, said that he thought bisexuals were the “worst type” of people and said they don’t want “to admit they are gay”, while also blaming them for the spread of HIV.
Aside from the out gay pantomime actor saying bisexual people needed to “pick a team,” he also allegedly made several antisemitic comments, which Channel 5 said were “capable of causing great offence to housemates and the viewing public.”
It’s nearly a decade later. Biggins is, thankfully, as far away from TV screens as he possibly can be, but the irreverent controversies that have defined the UK edition of Big Brother are back with the latest celebrity edition on ITV.
Complete with an all-star cast that would make for a terrifying blunt rotation, including former Tory MP Michael Fabricant, JoJo Siwa and Chesney Hawkes, the cavalcade of celebrities barely got through the front door before the s**t, or more specifically, Mickey Rourke’s mouth, hit the fan.
The 72-year-old Sin City star took no time at all to start making unbelievably creepy comments towards “Karma” singer and self-professed CEO of “gay pop,” JoJo Siwa, who is pansexual, implying to the 21-year-old that he could turn her straight. When she challenged his comments, as any of us would, he then began to gossip to other housemates that he would “vote the lesbian out real quick,” and made reference to a smoking a ‘f*g’, before telling Siwa he wasn’t talking to her.
Besides the skin-crawling fact that the age gap between the pair is old enough to drink twice over, Rourke’s comments are just, as most right-minded, non-Rourke people can agree, disgusting, inappropriate and reek of toxic masculinity.
It’s then perplexing that Celebrity Big Brother said it had issued a “formal warning” to Rourke over the comments and would eject him from the House if he continued to use “further language or behaviour of this nature.”
I’m sorry, but that is not enough. It’s not even close to enough. To leave comments like this with nothing more than a formal warning is a cowardly decision from showrunners who, from my perspective, care more about garnering views than they do about moderating what kind of damaging language and behaviour that should be aired on television.
The response to such a gross situation by the series’ showrunners stands in stark contrast to Biggins’ ejection. There, Celebrity Big Brother took a firm, zero-tolerance stance against the actor’s language and sent him packing. Nine years later, Rourke gets a slap on the wrist.
What has changed? Let’s play devil’s advocate and posit that the producers want to keep Rourke in the House because controversy sells. I don’t know about you, but I don’t care for anything Rourke has left to say. In fact, knowing that something as unpleasant as that interaction could happen again with him present has never made me want to switch my television off more.
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