In 2018, Coronation Street actor Ryan Thomas stormed to victory as the winner of Celebrity Big Brother. But the 39-year-old's journey in the Big Brother house was certainly not smooth sailing.
In an incident that saw the show hit with 27,000 Ofcom complaints, ex-actress Roxanne Pallett accused Ryan of physical assault whilst in the house.
She claimed Ryan had 'deliberately' punched her when he was asked if he needed any laundry doing.
The actor had, in fact, playfully pretended to box her.
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Luckily for Ryan, everything was caught on camera and his name was eventually cleared, but the actor has now spoken out about his experience, slamming Big Brother for the way they dealt with the situation.
Speaking on a new episode of Mancs on the Mic, a podcast he hosts with brothers Adam and Scott, Ryan accused the show of treating the incident like a 'science project' despite knowing he had not been violent.
He said: "I just feel like it's a science experiment and they don't interfere with what's going on... they wanted to see how it played out and [I] sort of get it, but a lot of people [were] saying I shouldn’t have gone through what I went through."
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He also recalled the moment he realised something was seriously wrong.
"I was sat on the bed and Kirsty [Alley] on one side, there was Sally [Morgan] on the other there was Nick [Leeson] and there was Dan [Osborne]," he said.
"I just get that feeling I'm being left out and then someone came in and said, ‘It’s because of you that she didn't want to stay in the house’ - I'm even getting goose pimples now speaking about it. I was like, ‘what do you mean me?’"
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He added: "Bearing in mind before this I’d been taken into the diary room to be told that I'm on my last warning, I was like, ‘wow, my last warning?’
"They said there's been an incident and you're on your last warning, and I didn't really grasp it."
Younger brother Scott, 35, responded: "This is why the nation was baffled because Big Brother could actually look though at the tapes but they were treating you as if you had done something wrong."
Ryan later cried tears of relief when during a live eviction, he heard the crowd chanting, "Get Roxanne out," and realised people were on his side.
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The incident remains the most complained about moment in Big Brother history and received more complaints than any other show in 2018.
Topics: Ryan Thomas, Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, TV And Film, Entertainment, Celebrity
Bec Oakes