Emma Willis was near tears after ‘Big Brother’ was axed.
The bubbly TV presenter addressed Channel 5’s decision to cancel the show and its celebrity version on Friday’s (14.09.18) final launch night and Emma admitted she is devastated to see both shows end after 18 years.
Speaking to Rylan Clark-Neal on ‘Big Brother’s Bit on the Side’, she said: "This should be a positive thing because we should just f**king show everybody how great this programme is and we should love it and embrace it and give it the sendoff it deserves.
"I’ve also been here before when it finished, so I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, we buried it and then it came back to life’.
"It was brilliant actually, and all the changes that the production team have made this series for celebrity and the one we’re about to enter.
"I think they’ve taken all the brilliant bits from the past and brought them back and mixed them with something different for the future, because it’s been on for a bloody long time and it has to be different. So I think they’ve made, I’m getting emotional now too, they’ve made a brilliant mix."
Speaking before the launch episode, Emma, 42, admitted she was shocked by Channel 5’s decision to axe the show but is still hopeful that it could be picked up by another broadcaster.
She said: "This is a very strange ‘What You Talking About Willis?’ today because normally it’s a ‘Yay! It’s the launch!’ of our civilian series. But the excitement comes with really a lot of sadness because we have all found out today that ‘Big Brother’ is no more on Channel 5. I feel like I’ve been through this process before. Well I have been through this process before because I worked on the last year on Channel 4 and we like … buried it. Like, genuinely. We had a grave for it and everything in the back garden and then the next thing we know is, ‘Oh wow, it’s coming back.’
"So, the news was a shock, if I’m honest, but I kind of still hold out hope that somebody out there, loves it as much as we all do still and will give it a home in the future because it has been on the TV for a bloody long time and you know it’s part of our popular culture. So it would be sad. It would be sad to see its end at the age of eighteen. It’d be lovely to see it come back for its twentieth anniversary."