Forget Big Brother for a hot sec, the whole reality telly multiverse seems to be talking about recent evictee Paul Blackburn right now.
From being branded a 'bully' by Trish Balusa in his final days in the house, to his somewhat playful relationship with Olivia Young, to his fondness for the shirtless life, Paul has been a talking point for weeks, and now he's out of the house he's keen to do some of the talking himself and set the record straight once and for all.
One thing he's keen to clear-up is his relationship with fellow housemate Olivia. The pair clearly got on like a house on fire (metaphor?) from the moment they met on day one, and despite Paul having a girlfriend and the playful never sharing more than a hug in the house, the nation were far from convinced and sniffed out a sexual attraction – and refused to let the scent go.
Despite what the vast majority of the public might think, according to Paul, the duo are indeed just good mates and he's pointing the finger at Big Brother himself for creating something out of nothing, criticising the show for making us lot think otherwise.
In a chat with press, Paul made it clear, "I feel like the narrative of me and [Olivia] got pushed from the get go. But me and Olivia made it quite clear that we would never touch each other. We’d never go near each other. We’re just friends – there was nothing to it."
It's almost as if telly producers might have edited something minor in a way to craft a storyline that really isn't there. Hmmm...
Paul then stressed that he is very comfortable in his relationship with his girlfriend IRL and that it's not uncommon for him nor his partner to have besties of the same sex. And to be fair he has a point; it's definitely 2023 and we're not teenagers any more - unless you are, in fact, a teenager, but you know what we mean. Gender is a construct anyway.
Paul explained, "In that house, I knew in the back of my mind that me and my girlfriend are very secure in our relationship. She’s got boy friends – she’s literally got a boy friend that lives next door to her. I’ve got girl friends – my girlfriend is mates with my best girl friend, so we have different people from different genders in our life. You can’t just avoid other genders because you’re with someone."
He went on to explain that part of the reason him and Olivia became so close so quickly is because he's from Liverpool and she's from Glasgow. He continued, "Glaswegians and Scousers have always had similar banter, so we were always going to get on. She likes to go to the gym, she likes to have a laugh, she’s a lot like me and she got involved with the banter."
Continuing his aggressive finger wagging crusade against Big Brother, Paul was keen to let fans know that certain scenes involving his girlfriend were cut from the edit, only adding to the "misrepresented" Paul and Olivia narrative.
He explained, "It just got pushed completely different to the way it was. Even when it comes down to when everyone got the picture (of their loved ones), and I didn’t; I was in the diary room crying my eyes out asking for the picture and that never got shown. And when I was in bed with my girlfriend’s teddy bear, none of that got aired. It was massively misinterpreted."
WATCH: The Big Brother reunion we've all been waiting for! 🙌🏼
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.