Former ‘Love Island’ contestant Montana Brown has admitted she feels sorry for ‘Celebrity Island’ co-star Roxanne Pallett, following her ‘punch-gate’ controversy on ‘Celebrity Big Brother’.
The former ‘Emmerdale’ actress was at the centre of controversy on ‘CBB’ when she accused housemate Ryan Thomas of hitting her “repeatedly” and “intentionally”, which she later conceded was a “mistake” and an “exaggeration”, and subsequently faced a huge backlash.
Montana, who starred alongside Roxanne on the most recent series of ‘Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls’, told The Sun she didn’t think Roxanne deserved some of the harsh criticism she faced, despite agreeing what she did to Ryan was “really bad”.
“I don’t know if you can tell from three days, but from what I saw from her she seemed like a genuine person,” Montana said.
“To be honest after this whole thing has blown up about ‘Big Brother’. I get that she is completely in the wrong and it’s really bad what she did – but I also don’t think it is OK for people to troll her the way that they are, because that is the kind of stuff that makes people want to take their own life. It’s not nice.”
She continued: “I was really shocked by ‘Big Brother’. To be honest I did feel really bad for her, I felt really bad for Ryan as well because I know Lucy [Mecklenburgh, Ryan’s girlfriend] quite well, but I think she obviously needs help so I think people need to support her in getting that help and hopefully she can get better.”
Earlier this week, Ryan revealed he is yet to receive a letter of apology from Roxanne, following a report that claimed the actress had penned one.
During the ‘This Morning’ interview, Ryan, who went on to win ‘CBB’, admitted he feared being in trouble with the law over the incident.
“I just felt like you know the police were going to call me. It was serious,” he said. “That’s why I broke down because I was so, so frightened, because these situations become, you know…”.
Roxanne has made two TV appearances since leaving the house, admitting she had “got it wrong” in her recollection of events.
She later announced that she was stepping down from her daily radio show and an upcoming pantomime role in order to “take time” away from the spotlight and reflect.