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Katie Hopkins was in the first ever episode of Big Brother: The Sun columnist's ceaseless publicity quest started earlier than you think

The Apprentice star, who is currently in the Celebrity Big Brother house, drinks cider and strips on Channel 4’s pilot episode in 2000

Monday 12 January 2015 14:22 GMT

Professional motormouth and columnist for The Sun, Katie Hopkins is taking part in Celebrity Big Brother 2015 (Channel 5)

Those who thought Britain’s most prolific Twitter troll Katie Hopkins found fame on The Apprentice, think again.

It turns out the former army cadet’s quest for the limelight actually started 15 years ago, when she appeared in Channel 4’s first ever episode of Big Brother.

Hopkins, who is currently waging verbal war against Perez Hilton in the Celebrity Big Brother house, was a contestant in a pilot show for the reality TV competition in 2000.

“Katie walked into Celebrity Big Brother last week as though she was new to the experience but in fact she's done it all before,” a show source told the Daily Star.

The tabloid also published a series of pictures of The Sun columnist, drinking from a bottle of cider and baring her bottom.

The show’s long-running narrator Marcus Bentley also appeared to confirm Hopkins’ long-kept TV secret on Twitter:

Since then, Hopkins has carved a career for herself as a sort of real life pantomime villain for hire.

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Show all 16

1/16Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on 'plus size'

'To call yourself 'plus-size' is just a euphemism for being fat. Life is much easier when you're thinner. Big is not beautiful, of course a job comes down to how you look.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on naming children

‘I think you can tell a great deal from a name. For me, there are certain names that I hear and I think ‘Urgh’. For me, a name is a shortcut of finding out what class that child comes from and makes me ask, ‘Do I want my children to play with them?’ There’s a whole set of things that go with children like that and that’s why I don’t like those sorts of children. ‘Hi, this is my daughter Charmaine’. I hear: ‘Hi, I am thick and ignorant.’’

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on gender equality

'Women don't want equal treatment, they couldn't handle it if they got it. It's a tough world out there. What a lot of women are actually looking for is special treatment. What women need to realise is that they have to toughen up.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on immigration

'I've always said if you go into a school playground and shout Mohammad, you'll probably get 100 children running towards you!"

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins to Benefits Street's White Dee

'Do you not feel like the patron saint of druggies and dropouts?'

Channel 5

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on tattoos

'Are tattoos just a badge for the stupid? For me, and for lots of people like me, when you see tatoos you think of someone who is just looking for attention, who hasn't managed to find a way in their life through conventional means and who is just shouting 'I want attention! I want to be looked at!'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on addiction

‘I don’t believe what Russell Brand says about addiction. I just don’t buy it. Gazza likes drinking, let him crack on. He is enjoying himself.’

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on The X Factor

'The X Factor 2013 has ended in a painful showdown between a fat mum in a jumpsuit (Sam Bailey) and a small boy in whatever his mum laid out for him on his bed (Nicholas McDonald)'

ITV

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on the Egyptian uprising

'The difference between most mothers and me is that I didn’t sit around drinking coffee at baby group for 12 months after the birth of my baby. No, in three weeks I was back in my suit, back at my desk earning profit for my business and I don’t see why other women shouldn’t do the same.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on maternity leave

'Egyptian uprising continues to look like Bonfire Night. Protest fireworks. Right up there with angry cup cakes.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on 'gingerism'

'Ginger babies. Like a baby. Just so much harder to love. A ginger person with tattoos called Jayden? The triumvirate of horror!'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on affairs

'I lied to get someone else's husband because I wanted him. I give myself 8 out of 10 for ruthlessness for that one.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on the elderly

‘Personally I hate mobility scooters. I find their owners intolerable. Ran past a mobility scooter going up hill. Made me giggle. I need to grow up and stop being an arse.’

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins after the Glasgow helicopter crash

'Life expectancy in Scotland is 59.5. Goodness me. That lot will do anything to avoid working until retirement.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on Ramadan

'Channel 4 broadcasts Islamic calls to prayer for Ramadan. A 30 day reminder that minority rules in the UK. Any more PC, it'd be a bloody laptop.'

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments

Katie Hopkins on self-harming

'I am advised by the Twitterati to 'cut myself'. I grazed myself on my house gate yesterday. Will that suffice?'

Over the last year, she’s expressed strong views on everyone from benefits claimants to the clinically obese.

In November, online petitions calling for her arrest amassed thousands of signatures after she appeared to post the following via her official account:

She has one supporter, though, in Nigel Farage. The Ukip leader condemned a separate police probe into allegedly offensive tweets she sent about a Glaswegian nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone.