Imogen Thomas casts view over Big Brother 2023

Former Big Brother housemate Imogen Thomas has this week spoken how she feels about some of the housemates in the first series for ITV2.

Imogen believes that Olivia is playing a game in this year’s series and her antics won’t come across well to the public. However, in true Big Brother style, the programme intervened and she was able to win immunity from being nominated for eviction when triumpant with a task earlier this week. Handily introduced, after her controversies, to make sure she wouldn’t be evicted.

“I’m not a big fan of Olivia and think she’s the least genuine and biggest gameplayer of the series so far,” Imogen said. “She’s been entertaining but I just feel everything about her is being done with a view to her having a career afterwards. It comes across like she’s playing a game.

“People will cause a bit of controversy here and there, but there’s a fine line and I think Olivia is pushing it. The way she was with Yinrun on Tuesday’s episode about apologising too much was quite passive aggressive and people don’t like that. She comes across as quite controversial because she is trying to show she’s a big personality and she is the show. As time goes on, she won’t be able to keep that up and I think her true colours will start to show.”

 Imogen went on to discuss, with safebettingsites.com, how she’d like to see Hallie win the series after she came out as transgender to her housemates.

“I really like Hallie and it would be nice to see her win, because of the way she came out as trans. I think that was a really brave thing to do, so I’m definitely behind her. I think Hallie is a nice soul. When she first went in on the launch show, I wasn’t sure about her but she’s really grown on me. She is very honest and I think it’s great because some people don’t know about being transgender and the process these people go through. It’s good that she’s been there to educate people on this.

 “She’s sweet as well. I think it’s nice that she’s really made it clear that she’s not had a boyfriend but that she wants to wait [until she has had her full operation] and that she will always explain to the guy beforehand about this. I think that’s really considerate and a good thing for someone to do. She said she was going to pay her mum back for all the money that’s she spent on her transgender change which was really nice to hear as well. So I’m really behind her and hope she does well.”

Imogen is also hoping to see Yinrun do well in the house, having found her to be a really enjoyable watch so far.

“I really like Yinrun. I think she’s really fun and genuinely doesn’t want to offend anyone! She’s just really funny, isn’t she? I really, really like her. I just think she’ll get more popular with the general public as the series goes on. She’s so sweet, she just wants to fit in. The launch night, when she was walking back and forth by the diary room, saying ‘What have I done?! What have I done?!’ which led to all those memes being created, she’s just hilarious! She’s literally hilarious. I think we’re going to get a lot more of those memes from here this series, definitely.”

Imogen also recapped on her time in the Big Brother house during the seventh series of the show in 2006 and drew similarities between herself and current housemate Jenkin. 

“The first week for me was really hard. There are a lot of people in quite a small space and emotions do run high. I was really feeling overpowered by everyone else’s personalities. When I saw Jenkin getting upset in the house earlier this week, I was thinking that was just how I felt at the beginning. Going in the diary room and explaining you’re not this massive personality is hard because you’re amongst all of these random people who are trying to get airtime and trying to be the most entertaining person ever.

“It’s really hard and it does play with your emotions. It makes you crack and cry and the best thing to do is just to let it out. That’s because people don’t realise what it’s like in the sense that you are always worrying about what those in the outside world are thinking. You start panicking and you do worry if you’ve made the worst decision of your life.

“I would definitely go back on the show again, though. If they did an all-star version and they wanted me on, I would definitely be up for it. I’ve changed a lot in 17 years, but I’d give it my all and experience everything about Big Brother again.”

Big Brother streams tonight on ITVX and returns to ITV2 tomorrow at 9 pm