For a while there, Shrewsbury's very own 'posh tottie hottie' Sarah Griffiths was looking set to make it to the Big Brother final, if not win the ruddy thing. But sadly for the spa account manager, this wasn't meant to be, as her and Thomas Atkinson fell victim to Big Brother 2024's dreaded vault just a few short days ahead of the grand final, leaving her bestie Marcello Spooks behind, but still in the running.
During a candid conversation with heatworld about her housemates, the chat naturally turned to her turbulent and heated relationship with Marcello. Those who have been following the series will know that Sarah and Marcello's relationship grew out of banter; banter which often blurred a few lines for Sarah – who has a partner IRL – resulting in her having to lay down some boundaries.
She explained, 'For me, with mine and Marcello's friendship, we had lots of conversations and I know they were going on in other places in the house – you may not have seen – where I was like, "This is my line". So the first time that happened, he made a comment towards me when I was dancing and I knew it was a joke, but it was of a more promiscuous nature. I just talked to him and said, "I get you're joking, but because I have a partner, this is my line." Okay, no problem.'
While we all saw this play out on screen, as it turns out, Sarah also had to draw the line with another boy in the house when it came to boy bants – and this we definitely didn't see play out on screen.
Sarah continued, 'We had loads of little conversations – I even had them with Khaled [Khaled], as well, he'd make out he was pretending to flirt. I was like, "I know you're not doing it on purpose, but this is my line".'
Steering the conversation to her friendship with Marcello once again, Sarah added, 'So when me and Marcello were having our back and forth he knew where the lines were but what also came into it and why sometimes they would turn into an argument was because we're from such different places – our tonality, our dialect – sometimes I couldn't tell whether he was joking because he has such a serious face. It took a little while to get used to that. You have to remember we didn't know each other from Adam.
'But, for me, I never really took anything to heart, I would've talked to him about it. There are definitely some things I didn't agree with and I would sit him down and say, "Marcello, I'm your friend, but I'm not going to stand by this comment."'
While Marcello is one of the favourites to win the series tonight (along with Ali Bromley), some of Marcello's 'misogynistic' comments towards women throughout the series have cause an uproar online, resulting in over 70 complaints to Ofcom last month.
Sarah, herself, faced a huge amount of public scrutiny earlier this week, following a 'racist joke' that resulted in over 700 Ofcom complaints and led in Sarah being given a formal warning by Big Brother.