Celebrity Big Brother 2025 launch – LIVE: Mickey Rourke is final housemate to enter show
A new cohort of stars entered the famous house
Celebrity Big Brother is back on our screens, and a new crowd of famous faces is getting ready to spend the next few weeks living under constant scrutiny, with their every move, meltdown and ill-advised remark broadcast to the nation.
Singer Chesney Hawkes, best known for his track “The One and Only” was the first star to enter the CBB house, followed by US reality star and singer JoJo Siwa and talk show host Trisha Goddard.
They were joined by former Love Island star Chris Hughes, ex EastEnders actor Patsy Palmer and former Tory MP Sir Michael Fabricant, who was tasked with greeting new housemates with a high five as part of the “super secret hush hush game show” challenge.
Retired Olympic athlete Daley Thompson, TOWIE star Ella Rae Wise and TV presenter Angellica Bell were later arrivals, along with RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Danny Beard and Coronation Street’s Jack P Shepherd.
And perhaps the biggest name to sign up was actor and Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke, the 72-year-old star of The Wrestler and 9 ½ Weeks, who is reportedly the highest-paid of this year’s contestants, securing a rumoured £500,000 fee.
And the first contestant is... Chesney Hawkes!
I for one really did not need to know that Chesney Hawkes is “a bit of a nudist”. After imparting that haunting nugget of information, Hawkes was given a special mission by Big Brother: to introduce himself to his fellow housemates as “the one and only, Chesney Hawkes”. Inevitable, really...
Contestant number two is.. JoJo Siwa!
Gosh, she’s very enthusiastic, isn’t she?
In case you’re not familiar with JoJo’s oeuvre, the 21-year-old became famous as a youngster on US reality show Dance Moms (so she has plenty of experience living life in front of the cameras) and has since branched out into music.
Trisha Goddard enters the Big Brother house
“If you need a mummy figure, get therapy!” Glad to see that TV legend Trisha is as blunt as ever... and she’s had a great reception from the live audience, who are chanting her name.
The presenter, who has stage 4 breast cancer, says she’s appearing on the show because “we cannot be so scared of dying that we become scared of living”.
Chris Hughes and Patsy Palmer are housemates number four and five
And so, after we’ve learned that Tricia and Chesney coincidentally went to the same school, we hear from Love Island’s Chris Hughes, who uses his CBB intro to talk about his love of horses and... how much he needs to go to the loo...
Once he’s safely ensconced in the house, and presumably close to the toilets, it’s time for ex-EastEnder Patsy Palmer to make her arrival, heralded by plenty of excitement from the crowd.
A frosty reception for Michael Fabricant
Let’s just say the crowd isn’t actually going wild for Michael Fabricant, who appears to have swapped wardrobes with fellow ex Tory MP Michael Portillo.
Corrie's Jack P Shepherd swaps the cobbles for the Celebrity Big Brother house
“I almost guarantee I’ll be up for eviction in the first week!” Well, there’s nothing like managing expectations, is there Jack?
The hair! The tan! The jacket!
This is going to haunt my nightmares tonight, and now it can haunt yours too!
Ella Rae Wise makes her Celebrity Big Brother entrance
The TOWIE star promises that she’ll be “diffusing the drama” in the house. Let’s see, shall we?
Eight housemates and counting
Fair play to ITV, at least they’re rattling through these celebrity introductions
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