When Celebrity Big Brother returned to British screens on 4 March 2024, it did so after a six-year absence - a hiatus that coincided with broader shifts in how British audiences consume reality television. Channel 5 had axed the franchise in 2018; ITV resurrected it with a budget reportedly exceeding £2 million, hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best at the helm, and a cast designed to guarantee tabloid headlines for three straight weeks. The experiment worked. Averaging 2.8 million viewers per episode and drawing 3.5 million votes in the final alone, Series 23 delivered chaos, scandal, and one of the most unexpected winners in the show's history. Here is every housemate who walked through those doors, and the controversies that followed them out.
The Full Line-Up: Thirteen Celebrities, One House
The series featured twelve official housemates plus a novel twist: Sharon Osbourne, 71, entered as the show's first-ever "Celebrity Lodger," a five-day guest role that gave her outsized influence without the obligation to stay the distance. The remaining twelve represented a deliberately eclectic cross-section of British popular culture - soap stars, reality TV alumni, a Broadway performer, a Dragons' Den success story, and, most provocatively, the uncle of the Princess of Wales.
The cast ranged in age from 22-year-old Heartstopper actor Bradley Riches to 71-year-old Louis Walsh. Several entered with pre-existing public goodwill - Fern Britton's warmth, Nikita Kuzmin's charm, Levi Roots' entrepreneurial story - while others carried baggage. Gary Goldsmith's 2017 domestic assault conviction had already made his casting a lightning rod before filming began. Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu arrived nursing the wreckage of a public breakup. David Potts, the Ibiza Weekender star who ultimately won, entered as a relative unknown outside the reality TV circuit. By the end, the hierarchy of fame had been thoroughly rearranged.
Gary Goldsmith and the Question of Editorial Responsibility
No single casting decision drew more criticism than the inclusion of Gary Goldsmith, 58, the maternal uncle of Catherine, Princess of Wales. Goldsmith introduced himself on the show as "the uncle to the future queen of our country," a line that managed to be both candid and breathtakingly tone-deaf. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to punching his wife Julie-Ann in the face during a drunken argument and was fined £5,000 with a 12-month community order.
Women's Aid issued a public statement ahead of the series: "The decision to include a man who has been charged, and pleaded guilty to, assaulting his wife, in the Celebrity Big Brother house demonstrates the lack of awareness that the production team has when it comes to survivors of domestic abuse." The Telegraph's arts and entertainment editor Anita Singh wrote that ITV "should be ashamed" for casting Goldsmith as "a 'fun' character." Big Brother responded by noting that "all housemates undertake training in language and behaviour before entering the house" and pointed to Goldsmith's previous apology, in which he said he was "not perfect" and had "worked endlessly for seven years to put right" his mistake.
Inside the house, Goldsmith proved a divisive figure. He was the first housemate evicted on Day 5, after Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh - watching from a secret lair as part of the lodger twist - nominated him alongside David Potts and Zeze Millz. When asked for their reasoning, Walsh replied bluntly: "We didn't like them." Goldsmith's exit was swift, but his presence continued to reverberate, particularly when he announced he would not attend the live final following his niece's public cancer diagnosis on 22 March.
Sharon Osbourne: The Lodger Who Ran the Show
The "Celebrity Lodger" concept was ITV's most inventive twist. Sharon Osbourne entered on Day 1, not as a standard housemate but as a short-term guest with special powers. She had her own separate bedroom and, alongside Louis Walsh, was tasked with watching and "judging" the other contestants from a secret location during the launch show. Their mandate was to select three housemates to face the first public vote. They chose Goldsmith, Potts, and Millz.
Osbourne's eight days in the house were characteristically combustible. She and Walsh resumed their X Factor chemistry, trading barbs about fellow celebrities - James Corden, Anna Wintour, and Ellen DeGeneres all came under fire. On Day 7, Osbourne received a secret mission: she could watch the housemates' nominations and was required to save one nominated housemate while replacing them with another. She saved Zeze Millz and nominated Fern Britton instead, a move that reshaped the eviction dynamics for the rest of the series.
Her departure on Day 9 was framed as a party ending. "It's been a great party. I have loved it," she told cameras. The lodger experiment was widely credited with injecting momentum into the early episodes, though it also drew criticism from former Big Brother contestant Trish Balusa, who accused ITV of a "shifting moral compass" for giving Osbourne a platform while banning Balusa from the spin-off show over resurfaced social media posts.
Ekin-Su, Louis Walsh, and the Art of the Feud
If Osbourne provided the narrative architecture, Louis Walsh and Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu supplied the weekly crises. Walsh, 71, treated the house as a platform for unfiltered opinion. He branded Jedward - the twins he had mentored on X Factor in 2009 - "vile," prompting a social media backlash and a response from the pair calling his comments "spiteful and disrespectful." He also revealed to housemates that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer during the pandemic but was now "fine." He finished in fourth place, telling cameras: "I was a bit wacky, a bit funny and had an opinion on everybody. I will never forget it."
Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu's trajectory was more turbulent. The 2022 Love Island winner, fresh from a high-profile split from Davide Sanclimenti, clashed with Marisha Wallace after Wallace nominated her during face-to-face nominations. Wallace's reasoning - "I can't beat you in the final" - did little to soften the blow. Ekin-Su's subsequent behaviour drew over 100 Ofcom complaints after her exit interview on the spin-off show Late & Live, during which hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best challenged her characterisation of events. Will Best referred to her as "Ekin Boo Hoo Hoo" in the studio audience, a moment that divided viewers. She was evicted on Day 12 alongside Levi Roots and ultimately pulled out of the live final, with her management citing a need for "time to reflect."
The Fern Britton-Nikita Kuzmin row added a quieter counterpoint. Britton, 66, misunderstood a comment from Kuzmin about her age; the Strictly professional later explained he had nominated her because his social circle in the house had naturally narrowed. "It was simply because I was hanging out mostly with a group," he said. "There was no good reason. I love Fern to bits." Britton confirmed on the final night: "I think we just misunderstood each other. It's all good now."
David Potts: The Underdog Who Slayed
The final on 22 March came down to five housemates: Fern Britton, Louis Walsh, Colson Smith, Nikita Kuzmin, and David Potts. Britton was eliminated first in fifth place, followed by Walsh in fourth and Smith - the Coronation Street actor who had quietly endeared himself to viewers - in third. Then it was Potts versus Kuzmin, with 3.5 million votes cast in what hosts Odudu and Best described as an "incredibly close" contest.
Potts won with 53.24% of the final vote to Kuzmin's 46.76%. In his acceptance speech, the 30-year-old was characteristically unguarded: "I genuinely did not think I would be in a house with 12 people who I actually genuinely really, really liked." His final diary room sign-off - "Big Brother, slay. Slay everyday" - became instant meme material. Celebrity PR Ed Hopkins told The Sun that Potts could "soon be signing six-figure deals" and, if he worked hard, earn "a million in the next two years."
The win was not without controversy. Some viewers accused the show of being "fixed," noting that Potts received disproportionate air time and was selected for multiple secret tasks. The night before the final, Heartstopper's Bradley Riches was evicted in a shock "backdoor" twist that drew 210 Ofcom complaints - the most complained-about moment of the entire series. Riches later revealed the main front door was broken, which was why he exited through the diary room. "I was meant to walk out on the stage with no one there but the door was jammed," he told Heat magazine.
What the Series Revealed About Celebrity Culture
Celebrity Big Brother 2024 was, in the end, a mirror held up to the machinery of modern fame. The Royal connection of Gary Goldsmith could not shield him from eviction. Sharon Osbourne's celebrity was potent enough to bend the show's format around her, yet her eight-day stint also raised questions about whether reality television has learned anything from its past mistakes. Louis Walsh's willingness to say the unsayable made him compelling television, but his comments about Jedward reminded audiences that opinions carry consequences outside the house.
The Ofcom complaints - over Ekin-Su's treatment, over Bradley Riches' eviction, over Gary Goldsmith's casting - suggest a public that is increasingly unwilling to accept cruelty as entertainment. Yet the ratings held. The votes poured in. David Potts, a holiday rep from Bolton who "got a bus down" to audition, walked away with the crown and the promise of a transformed career. In the house of fame and scandal, authenticity - or at least its convincing performance - remains the most valuable currency. As our recent analysis of British television's celebrity industrial complex suggests, the line between genuine notoriety and manufactured fame has never been thinner.
Celebrity Big Brother is streaming on ITVX.
