A GRIZZLED Hollywood legend wandered through a brightly lit corridor and was momentarily lost, before being ambushed by a Conga line led by a grinning pop star.
The opening episode of didn’t just deliver – it exploded onto screens in gloriously chaotic style.
Oscar-nominated , 72, made a reluctant entrance into the all-seeing ITV house after being herded towards the door by and Will Best.
After and spending too long high-fiving fans outside, he was greeted by , who danced towards him leading a parade of nervous housemates. One baffled look later, was finally in.
And while viewers may love the , the drama, and the late-night laughs, former housemate is offering American housemates and JoJo a grave warning.
in 2015 with headline-grabbing clashes, meltdowns, and diary room breakdowns, says the experience nearly destroyed him.
He’s urging and to prepare for what he calls “an emotional and psychological war zone”;.
“I was having severe mental health crises in that house. I’m not exaggerating,”; Perez told Flying Eze.
“My brain... it was racing, and I could not shut it off to go to .”;
Perez claims the structure of the show, including being locked in a dark bedroom with all the housemates and no option to leave until producers allowed it, will quickly grate on CBB‘s oldest housemate .
He says: “My lack of sleep started to cause mental health issues, like severe anxiety that was not helped by some of the things that Big Brother did that people may never realise.
“They had a metal shade, it’s to completely block out all the sunshine.
“But the problem is my season, there were a lot of housemates that were older, that were in their 50s and 60s, people that prior to the Big Brother house were used to waking up very early.
“If you're one of those people that normally would wake up early you could not leave the bedroom until they opened it.
“And if you have enough days and weeks of not sleeping, you start to go crazy.”;
The infamous gossip blogger, who became the history, revealed he was pushed to the brink of a breakdown due to chronic and .
“I truly was unwell in that house, and I really was going crazy,”; he recalls.
“You know, releasing all of these chemicals in the brain—adrenaline, endorphins, serotonin, whatever it is.
“And I was so unwell that it didn’t occur to me – you know, they have a doctor here – like, why haven’t I asked the doctor for sleeping medication? I should have done that way earlier.”;
“I did eventually, and the doctor did give me sleeping pills, and that made a huge difference.”;
He also thinks being American and the highest paid stars in the house won't do Mickey and JoJo any favours – and they'll never get a moment's peace.
“I think the biggest problem was most of the housemates viewed me as the enemy from day one because they thought, oh, this is a guy that's known internationally. He's American, but he's also known in the UK …
“It was people picking fights with me and they were picking fights with me because they wanted to get attention. They they wanted to get time on TV.
“They knew what they were doing and because (JoJo) is American, I don't think that she'll be in there for the panto of it all, right? She'll be trying to be real and just seeing what happens.”;
Despite being told the diary room was “open anytime,”; Perez also recalls a desperate moment begging at 3am to be let in.
“I had to put the microphone on my chest and say, ‘Hey Big Brother, I need to go to the diary room. Hey Big Brother ...’ this went on for, I’m not exaggerating, half an hour.
“I was like, ‘you guys don't open the door and let me go to the diary room right now,
I'm gonna get really loud.
“And I'm gonna start getting louder and louder and louder, and it's gonna wake up all of my housemates and I don't wanna wake them up.
“They wanted me to wake up the housemates, so I did wake up all the housemates and the big drama ensued. So people don't see that.”
Perez admits he got so bored in the house he was pushed to very desperate measures.
He says: “I don't even know if a lot of this made it on the air, like I would go into the pantry and spend a lot of time in the pantry because there's food in the pantry and not that I was eating the food, no, no, no.
“I would pick up the food items and I would read the labels because just reading, reading, you know, the food and labels.
“Like if it was pasta, like reading the suggested cooking time and all of that, like I was so bored. And then, you know, I started also doing crafting projects.”;
His advice to new housemates, especially JoJo and Mickey?
“My advice to both of them?
“Go see a psychiatrist and have them prescribe you anxiety medication and sleeping medication even if you don't take it now.”;
Asked why JoJo and Mickey are doing the show, Perez adds: “JoJo probably thinks it’s easy money and fun ...
“I think Mickey Rourke needs the money – plus the money is a lot.”;
He believes both stars were lured in with big paychecks: “You know, celebrities, a lot of them aren't always the best at saving. They don't always have a ton in the bank. They spend a lot.”;
Perez has since learned from his experience.
During a later stint on I’m a Celebrity Australia, he came armed with the tools to cope.
“I learned from my experience because a few years after I went and did I'm A Celebrity Australia and I went in there with anxiety medication and sleeping medication. And it was a huge help.”;
