Former Big Brother host Brian Dowling has explained his reasoning for turning down an offer to film an appearance in the highlights series Best Shows Ever.
Big Brother: Best Shows Ever has seen presenters Davina McCall and Rylan Clark-Neal offering commentary on some of their favourite ever episodes of the hit reality show, from its 10-year stint airing on Channel 4.
Earlier this week, Brian, who was crowned the show’s ultimate housemate in 2010, accused producers of trying to “rewrite history” by not mentioning his tenure as host on the show.
Davina has insisted this was due to the fact they were focussing purely on the Channel 4 era, while Brian didn’t begin presenting Big Brother until it made the jump to Channel 5, and spoke out once again on Thursday night.
Tweeting after Thursday’s episode, which featured Brian as a housemate, Davina wrote: “Just an FYI . We did ask @brianofficial to be part of the show. He was ultimate housemate!!!! That was a no brainer.”
Brian then wrote an “FYI” of his own to Davina, tweeting: “I found out from The Sun newspaper that I was being fired and replaced, and it took the production company a further four weeks to confirm that, without a single thank you or apology, phone call, text or email or even a bunch of flowers or a single question asking how I was.
“My whole time on the show as a host was tainted by how I was treated and it still affects me today.”
He added: “The same production company asked me if I wanted to film a 10-second message on my phone saying hello to you and Rylan. Surprisingly, I didn’t really feel like doing that.”
During his time at the helm of Big Brother, Brian presented two series of the regular show and four runs of the celebrity series, during which winners included Denise Welch, Julian Clary and future Bit On The Side host Rylan.
He was replaced by Emma Willis, who was interviewed via video-link in the first episode of Big Brother: Best Show Ever, alongside former Big Brother’s Little Brother star Dermot O’Leary.