ANN Widdecombe kicked up quite the storm during her time on Celebrity Big Brother – but confesses she only agreed to go on it because she'd never watched it.
The was a shock announcement to the house’s line-up for the show’s 21st series back in 2018.
Despite many predicting that Ann, who was 70 at the time, would be among the first to be evicted, she finished as runner-up with nearly 40 per cent of the vote.
Her time on the show was, clashing with the eventual winner, drag queen , over her anti-LGBT voting history.
She also locked horns with on the issue of gay , which saw Ann get slammed by many viewers who branded her the series' hated villain.
Now, in an exclusive interview with Flying Eze, Ann reveals what – with strict rules that push tensions to the max.
“You’ve got nothing. You’re not allowed books, you’re not allowed to do puzzles, you know with pencil and paper,”; she said.
“I vividly remember on one occasion, one of my housemates did a noughts and crosses in some condensation on the window and was told to wipe it off.
“You had to purely survive by interacting with each other. Now that’s fine if you’re doing it for a day. But when you’re doing it for a month, that’s when all the tension starts.”;
Sleeping arrangements were also strictly controlled – with until all the housemates are in bed.
She said: “The sleep deprivation was enormous. They have a rule that they won’t switch out the dormitory lights until absolutely everybody is there.”
“Well, of course the young people carried on to all hours of the night,”; she added – though said that unlike her, current contestant and fellow ex-Tory MP would be likely to join in the late-night antics.
“Several times I got out of bed and switched off the lights, and they just switched them on again.
“They used to tell us that we mustn't sleep during the day, and I used to yell and say well if you’d let us sleep at night, we wouldn’t need to.”;
Ruthless rules
While she knew she was set to be filmed 24/7, the lengths the producers went to achieve this still proved shocking.
“The sheer number of cameras surprised me – they were absolutely everywhere,”; she said.
“Even when you were sleeping at night, you had to have your microphone on the table beside you, so if you snore, the microphone will pick it up.”
But the degree of surveillance was lost on some of the other contestants – including , with whom Ann would go on to have a fiery clash over house chores.
She said: “Rachel had a habit of saying, ‘Look, they won’t show this bit’, and then say something. And well of course, what did they do?”;
As a former Tory politician in her 70s, it was a given that there’d be some differences in attitudes between herself and her other housemates.
Fortunately, she was still able to find an ally in , who was 82 when she went on the show.
“They were largely very sensible people when I was doing it – but there was still a certain amount of snowflakery around,”; she said, adding, “which of course Amanda and I, in our generation, had no time for at all.
They were in that house for a couple of weeks, three weeks max. But you would think that they’d been separated from their families for three years
“We’re the generation that had to get on with it.
“I didn’t do snowflakey-ness, and endless hugging and all this sort of stuff. Not my scene at all.
“I actually said at one point, to Malika, have you noticed how much people talk about themselves? And she said constantly.
“It somewhat irritated me, but that’s part of .”
Red lines
But it was the moment when the housemates a few weeks into their confinement that really riled Ann up.
“All the fuss!” she said. “They were in that house for a couple of weeks, three weeks max. But you would think that they’d been separated from their families for three years.
“In my day the kids in the dormitory at school used to see their parents once a year in the summer holidays.”;
Ann herself, however, knew that the producers had asked her niece to write a letter – and was terrified she’d be subjected to the same fuss about how much she was missed.
“I was dreading it,”; she said.
“But she got it absolutely right,”; she added. “She said, ‘Shane Lynch is in the house with you – please will you get me some tickets for ?’”;
Fans of the show are often under the impression that everyone is in the same boat and treated equally by producers.
But this isn’t actually the case – and some stars will in fact get special treatment, so long as producers are keen enough to get you on the show.
Only yesterday, it was revealed that demanded the to include a gym designed to his strict specifications before he went in.
I wouldn’t have done it without those guarantees
Ann’s red lines, however, weren’t quite so workout-based.
She said: “I’d laid down several things. First of all I wasn’t going to share a bed – I mean forget it, absolutely not.
“Secondly, modesty. I said modesty is important to me, and I’m not going to be in a situation where there’s any immodesty.
“I wouldn’t have done it without those guarantees.
“I was the same on – I insisted on knee-length leggings that matched every single dress I wore.”;
Courting controversy
The show’s big no-no, however, was contact with the outside world – but even here the rules could be bent.
Ann herself needed to get a vaccination for an upcoming cruise, so, under the watchful eye of a producer, briefly met with a doctor without exchanging a word.
She was also committed to writing her newspaper column every week – and so would be taken aside to a closet and handed a laptop by the show’s team that lacked internet access, and could only be used for typing.
“For all I knew the could have died,”; she said.
Negotiating with producers aren’t the only things in common between Ann and Mickey, however.
Like Ann, the actor has already sparked controversy early on – in his case, due to comments made towards fellow contestant that were widely criticised as homophobic.
“I was the one with the traditional views, andmade it clear what I thought,”; Ann said, reflecting on the backlash she faced.
“I knew the audience might not be on side with the view.
“But they were on side with the liberty to speak, and I think it was that – together with the fact they didn’t know what I was going to say next – that kept me in for so long,.”
So what advice does she have for Mickey – and anyone else who might land themselves in ?
She said: “I’d been a politician, so I was used to it. But the fact is that, whatever you say in the house, you’ve got to remember it’s going to be broadcast to millions.
“It’s not like talking with your friends in the pub, or even just going on social media.
“It’s going to millions. Therefore you need to be ready to answer for what you say.”;
And her advice to the housemates in general?
“Don’t bother trying to hide the real you – because it’ll show itself one way or another,” she said.
“From day one, you just have to be yourself. They’re going to find out anyway.
“You cannot sustain an act, day and night, waking and sleeping, doing tasks and socialising.
“You’re not going to be able to sustain up to a whole month a persona that isn’t yours. So if you’re a grumpy old woman, you just be a grumpy old woman from day one because you’re going to become that eventually anyway.”
She also added that it was only thanks to the show’s theme that year, celebrating a hundred years of women’s suffrage, that she ended up agreeing to go on – revealing that there were even talks of renaming it to Big Sister.
“I've always said the reason why I did Big Brother and was terribly simple – I'd never seen any of them before,” she said,
“And if I had, I probably would never have done them.”
