No series of Big Brother would be complete without at least one epic love story. If we didn't get that, we'd genuinely ask for our ITVX Premium subscription money back. Thankfully, we were gifted with the unexpected pairing that was Rosie Williams and Nathan King, who are leaving the show boyfriend and girlfriend (despite one or two parental concerns). As lovely as that love story was, there was, undeniably, another contender for epic love story of Big Brother 2024 – Thomas Atkinson and Lily Benson.
Okay, so they never got together in the house, but their story had all the cliched origins of an epic love story – squabbles, arguments, flirting, opposites attracting, lingering stares etc.
But we're not ones to put words in people's mouths (ahem), so naturally, when we caught up with Tom one-on-one soon after his eviction from the house, we simply had to enquire about him and Lily. And let's just say he used a lot of words to say...not really.
Tom told us, 'Lily was a very unique character in the house. For quite a few weeks me and Lily weren't very close and then we got really, really close, and then there were setbacks of face-to-face nominations, then arguments and you feel like, "What are we? Are we friends? Are we not friends? Are we this? Are we that?"'
We resisted the urge to scream, 'STAR CROSSED LOVERS' at Thomas over Zoom at this point, btw.
He then added, 'Lily's a really pretty girl at the end of the day, but for me, it was never like that. You can appreciate someone's character and how fun they are to be around. She was the heart and soul of that house. If something was going to happen, it was involving Lily. Our experience was more 20-year-olds, chatting about dating and what we're in to and stuff like that. So I can understand why it came across in that nature.'
Just when we thought Thomas had wrapped this up in a nice platonic bow for us, he then, however, started going on about him and Lily kissing...or least the conversations they had about kissing inside the house. Do tell, Thomas...
He continued, 'We were speaking about kissing each other and we were like, "Nah, we're just joking" and I think you'll see that on the outside.'
Let's follow this up after the wrap party, shall we?