Big Brother’s Paul Blackburn reveals the REAL reason behind the house divide

'It wasn’t a negative thing as to why there were two groups'

Paul Blackburn with housemates in living room

by Ben Pulsford |
Published on

Big Brother is getting so good that we're starting to worry about what we're going to do with ourselves once it's done for the year.

Of course, we know what we'll do, we'll start obsessing over I'm A Celeb, but still, we're living for every drop of house action we can get night after night right now.

Part of what's making the Big Brother reboot such chuffin' great telly is the great house divide. Obviously we're losing more and more housemates from either side to the public vote week after week, but these days its Jenkin Edwards, Chanelle Bowen, Tom Bryant and Olivia Young on one side, and Trish Balusa, Yinrun Huang, Noky Simbani, Matty Simpson, Jordan Sangha, Henry Southan on the other (although Noky and Matty do tend to float between the two).

Big Brother house living room
Just how divided is the Big Brother house? ©Shutterstock for Big Brother

The divide has been at the centre of some of the series' biggest scraps and rows, including the monumental one between Trish and Paul Blackburn which took place before he was evicted last Friday.

Naturally, when heat came face-to-face with Paul soon after his eviction to a barrage of boos, we simply had to get his thoughts on the house divide and those on either side of it.

To our surprise, the divide isn't anywhere near as dramatic as it's being portrayed on our screens, and the true reason it exists is actually rather practical – at least according to Paul (although that 'bullying' row with Trish was certainly dramatic in our books).

Big Brother Paul
Paul ©Shutterstock for Big Brother

He told heat, "These two groups we see forming aren’t as heavy as they seem on camera, but that’s television for you."

He continued, "The narratives that get pushed on the outside and on the programme are completely different to what it’s like in the house."

Paul was keen to stress that Big Brother is pulling some major puppet strings behind the scenes, making the smallest things look colossal on screen – including his apparently very platonic relationship with Olivia.

Housemates talk around sofas
The divide isn't as heavy as it seems on camera, according to Paul ©Shutterstock for Big Brother

Explaining what caused the divide to begin with, Paul said, "In the day, everyone’s sat round together. Everyone’s sat round the couches talking to each other. There are the two groups in the house, but we do cross paths. We do sit and talk to each other."

He continued, "I’m a loud character, Olivia was a loud character. Jenkin and Chanelle loved just being there and laughing at us. Other people just wanted to sit and chill and we respected that with each other. It wasn’t a negative thing as to why there were two groups, it was more we wanted to respect each other’s boundaries.

"There were people who wanted peace and people who wanted to have a laugh and a good time. We wanted to be loud, so we went in the garden and they just went upstairs every now and again.

"It wasn’t as deep as it looks or as deep as it seems."

Okay, but you were drowning in that smackdown with Trish, let's be real.

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Ben Pulsford is a Digital Writer for heatworld and a London-based drag queen called Beary Poppins. He has been a Big Brother fan since before many heatworld readers were even born and still compares all confrontations in all areas of his life to the infamous Fight Night of 2004. It's, thankfully, rarely beaten.

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