Big Brother refuses to take action against homophobic housemate
Big Brother will not be taking any action against a contestant who made shocking homophobic remarks on social media.
Tom Barber, a 21-year-old from Swansea, has repeatedly insulted people on Twitter using the terms “gay” and “faggot”, as PinkNews revealed exclusively yesterday.
But Big Brother has seemingly decided these slurs are not offensive enough to constitute Barber being thrown off the show.
The eighteenth season of the programme started on Monday.
When asked by PinkNews what will happen to Barber now that the show’s authorities are aware of his posts, a Big Brother spokesperson responded: “We won’t be commenting.”
The spokesperson also gave no comment when questioned specifically about whether Barber would be staying on the show.
The revelation of Barber’s homophobic comments is even more surprising given that he has now revealed he didn’t apply to be on the programme – instead, he was reportedly asked to go on.
Barber – who has his own nightclub “because his grandad gave it to him,” according to his Big Brother profile – admitted as much to fellow contestant Lotan on live TV
He said he was in Marbella when someone got in touch to ask if he’d come on the show.
“I got a message on Facebook,” he explained.
And he was given extra powers as the People’s Housemate when the show’s current edition started on Monday.
The public voted to give him the ability to “revoke the citizenships” of half of his housemates, who will be “exiled to the fringes of Big Brother society” and up for eviction.
But what viewers didn’t know was that Barber has a history of making homophobic remarks, as pointed out to us by a helpful PinkNews reader.
He told someone on Twitter: “u probs get loved up again now before we go you faggot,” and uses ‘faggot’ as an insult on multiple occasions.
When shown a photo of how he used to look, Barber commented: “don’t start on me… I looked like a lesbian ?”.
This theme of Barber using the idea that LGBT people are inferior to insult others continues throughout his posts.
When he was called a lazy w***er by a friend, he responded: “that sounds like proper gay ry”.
And when the same friend made fun of his footballing abilities, he said: “Tha was poor mate, almost as bad as that gay attempt of a back heel”.
A friend told him: “See you in a bit my man,” to which Barber responded: “my man? You gay or wha?”
Last year, Big Brother contestant Andrew Tate for thrown off the show after it emerged he had sent out homophobic and racist tweets.
He used several offensive slurs in his tweets, and wrote that “a pure homosexual can not reproduce, so they need your children for new partners.”
