Big Brother winner Brian Dowling has reflected on his feud with Davina McCall after the pair had a public exchange in 2020 about the fact his stint hosting the show was not included in the retrospective Best Shows Ever series.
Brian – who became host of Big Brother following its move to Channel 5 in 2011, before being replaced by Emma Willis – previously claimed that the E4 specials had tried to erase him from the show’s history.
Things all started when Brian’s tenure as host was not mentioned during a conversation between Davina, Emma and Rylan Clark in one of the specials.
After one viewer noted that they found the omission strange, Brian tweeted: “You are not the only one. Actually at this stage it’s getting rather funny. People trying to rewrite history.”
Davina responded at the time, explaining Brian’s presenting stint hadn’t been discussed as Best Shows Ever focussed solely on the Channel 4 years of the reality show.
The original “Big Mutha” also stated Brian had been invited to appear on Best Shows Ever.
However, he later tweeted an “FYI”, saying he had turned down the chance to film “a 10-second message on my phone” because he was “still affected” by the way he found out he was being “fired and replaced” as host.
Brian has now said he never “got an apology for stuff that was said” as he addressed the row in an interview with The Sun.
“I know what happened to me during my time on that show – Davina McCall doesn’t because she wasn’t on the show,” he said.
“I was uncomfortable with Davina’s truth because they weren’t Davina’s truths to tell. They were my truths to tell, and how I felt regarding my firing from Channel 5.
“Davina worked on a show on Channel 4. Davina and I had a good relationship up until the summer of last year, but things were said publicly that weren’t true and weren’t fair.”
He added of the row: “I was not expecting it to go the way that it did with Davina and everything she was saying.
“I just wanted someone to acknowledge the fact I hosted it when it moved from Channel 4 to Channel 5. No one did.”
HuffPost UK has contacted a representative for Davina for comment, and is awaiting response.
Brian previously opened up about being “publicly humiliated” when he was axed as the host of Big Brother in 2013, claiming he found out about the decision in the media.
“When I was fired I was hurt, upset and publicly humiliated. My mental health and confidence has suffered terribly for the last seven years because of that and other events that occurred whilst I was the host,” he said in 2020.
Big Brother was axed by Channel 5 in 2018, seven years after they picked the show up from Channel 4.
Following its successful compilation series Best Shows Ever – which celebrated the franchise’s 20th anniversary in the UK – Big Brother is set to return to the Channel 4 family next month when E4 begins screening the Australian edition of the Celebrity spin-off.
