‘Big Brother’ fans are not happy with housemate Tom Barber, after homophobic tweets he posted before entering the house were unearthed.
Tom almost missed out on a place in this year’s series entirely, but during the launch show earlier this week, he won the People’s Housemate public vote, and was therefore able not just to enter the house, but enjoy special privileges, including contact with the outside world.
However, despite his initial popularity with ‘BB’ fans, he’s now come under fire over a string of comments he made on social media over the course of several years, which include homophobic slurs.
In the most recent, posted in February 2016, he told a friend: “Twat, u probs get loved up again now before we go you f****t.”
Two years earlier, he’d used the same slur while tweeting to a different friend.
LGBT website Pink News has also discovered a number of tweets sent from the 21-year-old’s Twitter account in 2013, in which he repeatedly uses “gay” as a put-down.
Many ‘Big Brother’ fans are now debating whether it was appropriate to include Tom in the series given his past public posts on social media, particularly given that past contestants have been ejected from the house over online posts that had been unearthed while they were in the ‘BB’ house.
Tom also been called out by Sue Evans, who lost the People’s Election to Tom on Monday (5 June).
A ‘Big Brother’ spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by HuffPost UK.
Tom previously raised eyebrows on his first night in the house, when he and Lotan Carter were caught on camera bragging about the fact that they didn’t have to audition for the show.
‘Big Brother’ continues tonight (8 June), at 10pm on Channel 5.