Producers of ITV’s Big Brother have been accused of allowing one contestant to get away with homophobia after another accused them of offensive language.
35-year-old barber Dean Quinton, who is gay, was evicted last week.
Following his departure from the Big Brother house, Quinton revealed during an Instagram live that Marcello Spooks called Quinton “Campenstein” during Halloween week when the latter was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster.
Quinton also alleged that a lot of the housemates – the ‘core group’ particularly – would repeatedly make comments about things being “gay” such as saying “that’s gay” in the house.
Though he did not name the housemates in question, the ‘core group’ has been used to refer to Hanah, Segun, Marcello, Thomas, and Khaled.
Several Redditors have expressed their anger about Quinton’s revelations, particularly towards Marcello, who has been accused of making many other unpleasant remarks in the past – including sexualised, flirty comments about the women in the house.
One Reddit poster said: “Why does Marcello get away with homophobia and misogyny?!”
Others questioned why Marcello has not been “kicked out” of the house, and wondered why viewers have not been privy to the homophobic comments, saying that ITV is “doing the absolute most to avoid these types of behaviours airing”.
Additionally, hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best shut down Quinton’s attempt to bring up alleged homophobia during the former housemate’s exit interview.
During the interview, Quinton said: “In the beginning, I was like, “Oh, he’s really genuine; he’s actually a nice guy,” but as time went on, he started making misogynistic comments about women.”
“One of the comments was, “What’s there to do in Amsterdam? The women!’,” Quinton claimed, but this was not aired. “Now, for me, you don’t treat women like that; that’s disgusting. Then he started making some homophobic comments…”
At this point, Odudu interjected to say that Marcello had “clearly” said “things that rubbed you up the wrong way…”
ITV has also recently come under fire for editing out pro-Palestinian symbols, such as Ali Bromley’s watermelon t-shirt.
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