Brian Dowling has confirmed he rejected a cameo on ‘Big Brother: Best Shows Ever’.
Fans have taken to Twitter to question why the former ‘Big Brother’ winner and presenter hasn’t appeared on the programme – which has looked back at the Channel 4 years of the reality TV show – and Brian has now admitted he was offered the chance to record a message for the show, which was hosted by Davina McCall and Rylan Clark-Neal.
But the 42-year-old star "didn’t really feel like doing that" after claiming he only found out he had been axed from his presenting role on the show in the newspapers, and he alleged it took the production company four weeks to confirm the decision "without a single thank you or apology, phone call, text, email or even a bunch of flowers or a single question asking how I was".
He wrote: "I found out from The Sun newspaper that I was being fired and replaced, and it took the production company a further 4 weeks to confirm that, without a single thank you or apology, phone call, text, email or even a bunch of flowers or a single question asking how I was.
"My whole time on the show as host was tainted by how I was treated and it still affects me today.
"The same production company asked if I wanted to film a 10 second message on my phone saying hello to you & Rylan. Surprisingly I didn’t really feel like doing that. (sic)"
Brian shared the statement on Twitter with the caption "FYI" in reply to a tweet from Davina, who insisted he had been asked to appear on ‘Best Shows Ever’ after some fans wondered why he hadn’t appeared on the show.
She wrote: "Just an FYI . We did ask @brianofficial to be part of the show. He was ultimate housemate!!!! That was a no brainer. (sic)"
And in response to a fan who claimed he was "pretty sure he [Brian] wasn’t asked", Davina again clarified: "He was asked. Fact."
Beforehand, Brian had responded to a fan who said they found it "very strange" that there was "no mention of Brian as a presenter".
He replied: "You are not the only one. Actually at this stage it’s getting rather funny.People trying to rewrite history. (sic)"
But Davina wrote: "We haven’t talked about Brian presenting as this is the channel 4 years as you have probably noticed. He presented on channel 5 . We had Emma and dermot on as they both worked on channel 4 big brother . We love @brianofficial . A lot. We showed him in bb2 (sic)"
Brian won the second series of ‘Big Brother’ in 2001 and went on to win ‘Ultimate Big Brother’ in 2010.
He hosted the show from 2011 – its first year on Channel 5 – to 2013, with Emma Willis then taking over.