The Big Brother house guests drank liquor by the crateful. But Love Island’s tortuous trysts are fuelled by fruit juice and nosecco. Why did reality TV go on the wagon? Ex-contestants reveal all
villa in 2018 – red lipstick applied, microphone on, nude swimming costume tied at the front – Megan Barton-Hanson turned to her handlers and made what she thought was a simple request. Could she have a glass of rosé? It didn’t seem fair, after all, that she was expected to “go on TV for the first time and try to strut my stuff like I think I’m Britney Spears” without a single drink. The producers said no.
Bateman – who you might know better as “Nasty Nick” thanks to his infamous conniving on the show – says there were no real rules around drinking during his 34 days in the Big Brother house. “Alcohol was given to us when we were feeling down or depressed or nothing was going on,” he says, “because obviously alcohol is the molotov cocktail producers use to liven things up.” Bateman says drink was coveted by contestants because it would “quell the boredom” of being captive in the house.
Big Brother ran on Channel 4 until 2010. TV producer Gavin Henderson became creative director when it relaunched on Channel 5 a year later. Times had changed: the high-profile breakdown of Britain’s Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle in 2009 led to greater scrutiny of reality TV, with The X Factor producers announcing new measures to protect contestants.
Things have seemingly become stricter since: 2017 Love Islander Jess Shears told Closer magazine that contestants were given more booze on first dates, in order to “loosen up and be a bit more flirtatious”. But Barton-Hanson says that wasn’t the case by 2018. “They were sneaky as well,” she says. “They’d give you nosecco, no-alcohol prosecco.” When she heard her date with contestant Eyal Booker was in a vineyard, she was delighted. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, yes! We can get tipsy this afternoon.
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