How to recycle reality TV show lies, with the Daily Star

With crushing predictability, the Daily Star has run Celebrity Big Brother stories on the front page day after day after sodding day.

Last Wednesday, the front page story was trying to claim that Vinnie Jones was using tactics to stay immune from nomination for eviction. Unlike every other contestant on Big Brother, of course. And by calling him a 'bully', it would suggest his attempts to win aren't working that well.

So it's not exactly a fix.

But then, nor was it when the programme was being fixed for Alex Reid to win a week before.

And if the Star claiming a reality show is fixed sounds familiar, that's because they do it every time one is on. Such as with I'm A Celebrity, which was 'fixed' for Jordan to win, eventhough she, err, didn't.

Or when The X Factor was being 'fixed' for Jedward to win, eventhough they, err, didn't either.


On Thursday 22 January, the front page was about a punch-up between two of the Big Brother contestants. While Vinnie Jones and Sisqo had been mouthing off to each other, they hadn't actually had a punch-up.

But that shouldn't be a surprise, because neither had Alex Reid and Peter Andre when the Star claimed they had, in a pre-series front page on 22 December.

On Friday, one of the first people to be evicted was worrying about 'stolen sex pics'.

Well, possibly. Everything, as always with the Star, came from anonymous sources so chances are it wasn't true.

This is, of course, totally different to the story the Star ran during I'm A Celebrity about Jordan fearing Alex Reid would ruin her career with sex pics. Not sure how someone who spends half her time in public naked gets ruined by that, but it was another anonymous source so it probably wasn't true either. And no such pics have yet come to light.

And it's certainly nothing like the 'Myleene Klass sex pics' story they ran when she was on I'm a Celebrity several years ago.

On Monday, the Star seemed to give up. It put all its favourite front page headline words into a hat and pulled them out at random. The result?

Jordan's BB sex plot 'fix'. What?


Yes, it's another 'fix'. But what is the 'plot' this time? Well, the Star's two journalists (yes, two of them) claimed she wanted partner Alex Reid out of the house so she could shower him with attention. And have sex. So she was asking friends to vote him out. It's neither a fix nor a sex plot and so not really accurate. Even the quote they use from Jordan's Facebook says: 'Sooo missing him, 8 more sleeps'. But if she had wanted him out on Wednesday, as the Star claimed, that would be two more sleeps. Not eight.

But the Star likes a made-up sex plot. Indeed, Katia was involved in one earlier in the series. As was Danielle Bux in the 2009 series of Hell's Kitchen, Sophie Reade in last year's Big Brother, Charley Uchea in the 2007 Big Brother and Nicola McLean in the 2008 I'm A Celebrity.

Today, the headline was Jordan fury at Alex and Nic naked B Bro romp.

And by 'naked' they mean 'Nic' was wearing clothes. And by 'romp' they mean she was covering Alex in spray tan.

Unsurprisingly, that naked romp headline has appeared before too. During the 2008 I'm A Celebrity some of the contestants were accused of having a 'naked jungle romp' which actually amounted to them having a shower.

It's not just that the Star makes up reality TV stories, using sex to make the programmes seem far more interesting to their one-track-mind readers than they actually are. But they then repeat them over and over whenever a new reality show starts. The same bullshit stories, the same misleading headlines, the same lies attributed by anonymous sources.