Essex Boy: My Story (19 page)

Then on New Year’s Eve we stayed at the May Fair hotel in London and watched the fireworks from our balcony.
It was a really homely, romantic, coupley time, where I could see what a future
with Gemma could be like, and I liked what I saw.

But I assumed that one of the reasons the
Celebrity Big Brother
producers had wanted me is because I have the image of being a ladies’ man, and I wouldn’t be very popular
with them if I went into the house in a relationship.
I told Gemma my concerns and we talked about whether I should pretend I was single and still stay with her, but that seemed daft.
Gemma was
upset, but she said, ‘I think you need to put your career first.
So let’s just split up, and you go in the house, and if we feel the same in a few weeks when you are out again, we can
always pick things up from where we left off.’
I thought she was right.
I really wanted to do
Celebrity Big Brother
, and I knew if we were a strong enough couple then a few weeks
apart wouldn’t matter, so we ended it.

In January 2012 I went into the
Big Brother
house, which is built at the back of Elstree Studios in west London.
People have since asked if I was worried about panic
attacks and anxiety before I went in, but I wasn’t.
The excitement of it all overrode any other feelings.
And wow, what an experience it turned out to be!

I was totally amazed when I went in the house to see Michael Madsen there.
That man is one of my idols.
In
Reservoir Dogs
he blows me away.
Here was an actor from one of my favourite
films of all time, standing right in front of me.
And I was getting to live with him!

Going in is a strange experience because you think, ‘That’s it.’
You forget your life in the outside world, and all the contestants get on like they are at home and are going
to live in there for ever.
People were taking their tops off and wandering around, getting in the hot tub and swimming, opening up about their deepest secrets .
.
.
I loved it!

I had a great bunch of housemates in with me, and I really got caught up in it all, so much so that I didn’t think of Gemma.
Not in a bad way, like I didn’t care about her, but my
mind was overwhelmed with everything else.

You soon realize how boring it can be, though.
There is nothing to do.
So you start making everything take twice as long as it needs to.
You will wake up and lie in bed relaxing.
Then get up and
make breakfast really slowly, and eat it, enjoying every mouthful.
Then you will have a shower, and make that the longest, hottest shower possible.
And by the time you get out and get changed, you
hope it is time for lunch!
That is how ridiculous it is.

Frankie Cocozza quickly became my best mate.
He had been on the last series of
X Factor
and I had met him down at the studios, and we had been BBMing since then.
But it was only in the
house that we got to be really tight.
I thought he was the bollocks, and I loved that he really didn’t give a fuck.
He thought, said and did what he wanted, and I admired that about him.

In a way my friendship with him made me come a bit unstuck as far as the show went, though, as it fitted even more with the role they wanted me to take on.
Everyone in the
Big Brother
house starts to fall into a role for the producers – a bit like in
TOWIE
– but this time I was cast in the role of a womanizing bad boy.
I can’t pretend I didn’t
deserve it on one level, but it was not what I was about.
I cooked all the time and was the obsessive cleaner in the house.
I cleaned that place every day, literally got down on my hands and knees
and scrubbed the bathroom floor with bleach – you had to with that many people living there, or it would have been vile!
I taught the others how to wash their clothes in the bath and survive
without a washing machine.
And they didn’t show any of that on air!

But I can see where the womanizing thing came from.
Basically I was flirting with Irish model Georgia Salpa.
She was a good-looking girl, and I did fancy her looks – although not her
personality.
I never felt like she had much to say.
I didn’t actually want to date her, but there was nothing else to do, so flirting with her passed the time.
Then one night after we had
been in there for a week, Natasha Giggs, who I got on well with as a mate, asked me to get into bed with her, not to do anything, just for a cuddle – but the minute I put my foot in I thought
of Gemma and was overwhelmed with guilt.
I ran to the diary room and cried my eyes out about her.
I said, ‘Listen, I split up with the girl I love to do this game show, this is not
right!’

And from then on it was like that had opened the floodgates.
It brought back the reality of the outside world, and burst the bubble I had been living in.
I couldn’t stop talking about
Gemma and my life back home in general.
I’d be in the diary room crying my eyes out, saying how much I missed her and missed home.
I am a proper crier when I get going!
But mix that with me
flirting with Georgia .
.
.
and, well, I get why once it had been edited to cut out all the hours in between, I looked like a bit of a playboy.

Editing is a funny thing.
When I came out of the house and heard what the public thought of certain people, I’d wonder, how the hell did they get that idea?
Everyone seemed to think Denise
Welch was a raging fruit loop, always on the drink.
But we had two bottles of wine and twenty beers to share between the whole house every night, so how could someone be a pisshead on that?
In
reality Denise was lovely.
All she ever talked about were her kids.
She was one of my favourites in that house, along with Natasha, Nicola McLean, Natalie Cassidy and Gareth Thomas.
They were all
so lovely!

One moment on the show that I wasn’t so happy about was my geography task .
.
.
I was pulled into the diary room and asked to mark out certain places on a map.
I had told them before I
went in that I would hate to do anything that involved general knowledge, or something you learned in school, so they obviously thought it would be funny to give me that!
And it was bad.
I
couldn’t even tell where America was on the map.
I haven’t got a clue on that stuff, because I didn’t take it in at school.
I figured I would never actually need it anyway.
But
that day was really embarrassing.

It was so emotional in that house, but despite everything, and the editing and whatever else, it was still one of the best things I ever did in my life.
It was like I had ticked a teenage dream
off the list!

When I left the house after sixteen days – I was the fourth person to be evicted – I didn’t know what I was going to come out to.
I was still madly in love with Gemma and
wanted to make things right with her, and I had no idea what reaction I would get from the public.
It is a weird feeling, not knowing how you will be perceived.
And actually I got a lot of cheers
so I was happy with that.
I remember I even asked at the time, ‘Was the number to vote for me not working right?
’Cos that response was so positive!’

There were suggestions that because it was a vote to save the housemates for once, rather than the usual vote to evict, viewers had got confused, and voted for the wrong people.
But that is only
speculation; I will never know and I just had to accept it.

I had my exit interview live with Brian Dowling and he asked me, ‘Who do you want to actually be with, Georgia or Gemma?’

And straight away I said, ‘Gemma!
I came in here single and the girl I split up with – I regret every minute of it – and I have just realized how much I love her and I really
do.’

I had no idea if she was watching, and whether she hated me or still wanted to be with me.
I called her as soon as I could, and it turned out she had gone off to Dubai while the show was on to
escape the press, as they had all been asking her for interviews while I was in the house.
When I had been doing my interview with Brian, Gemma’s mum had called her out there on Skype, and
had the laptop turned to face the TV, so she saw what I had said about her.

As soon as I got through to her I said, ‘Sorry, I have been such an idiot.’

‘I heard what you said,’ she told me.
‘Did you mean it?’

‘Yeah, I love you!’

‘Well, I’m getting on the next flight home to you then,’ she said.

And I was so pleased that she was doing that.
I couldn’t wait to see her again.
But I still had work to do, so I headed back to the hotel where they put me up so I could talk to the press
about the whole
Celebrity Big Brother
experience.

But then Natasha came over to the hotel.
She had been evicted before me, so she came to see me and catch up.
Natasha had become famous for having an eight-year affair with Ryan Giggs – the
brother of her husband, Rhodri.
She and Rhodri were separated by then.
The two of us had got on in the house, but just as friends – we had never even flirted, but I did really like her.
And,
well, things just happened that night.

That sounds bad, doesn’t it, when Gemma was on her way back from Dubai to see me.
But my head was all over the place.
Natasha was an attractive girl, even though I hadn’t allowed
myself to think it in the house.
Combine that with the fact I felt pretty confused and alone when I got out of the house, and it was like I had a connection with her as the only one who really
understood what I was thinking at that time.
She had been in the house, really seen what was going on and what it was like, and was feeling similar emotions to me.

But the next day, as I was getting back to Essex, so was Gemma.
She had literally run to the airport the night before and got on the first plane home.
It was really romantic, like something out
of a film!
But we couldn’t be seen, so Adam had arranged for a car to take Gemma to a nearby hotel and I met her there, so we could catch up without any paps getting pictures of us.
I needed
to get my head straight without anyone else giving their opinions or judgement.

We had a great first night back together, and it was so good to see her, but almost immediately reality kicked in.
Although I was off
Celebrity Big Brother
, the many interviews and
appearances we were expected to do afterwards were about to start.
I told Adam, ‘Gemma is back, she’s my girlfriend, and I want people to know that, no matter what.’

But he told me, ‘To be honest, mate, you’ve got a lot of work to do in the next few weeks.
You need to focus on that, not on a girl, and especially not one where you’re going
to be linked to all the porn stuff.’

So again, poor Gemma was great – she understood, and she said, ‘You gotta do what you gotta do.
Let’s leave things for weeks, months, whatever it takes.’
And she left and
got on with her own life.
And somehow, although I would have loved it to, my relationship with her never really started up again.
She didn’t trust me to stick it out with her again, and not
give her grief over her old life or go running off when something came up for work.
And I get that.
I understand how she felt, but the attraction didn’t disappear.
And we would occasionally
meet every few months, when we were both single and in the same town, but she would never agree to actually start dating me again.
Which is a shame, because I truly believe she is the one girl in
my life who has been best for me, and who I have loved the most.

As soon as Gemma and I split .
.
.
well, another thing happened.
On the final night of
Celebrity Big Brother
, there was a wrap party for all the housemates and crew.
It was really good to see everyone again and have a catch up.
At one point the two
Playboy
twins, Kristina and Karissa Shannon, who had been in the house, came over to me and tried to
chat.
I had got on with them when we were first in the house, but they had talked badly about me and Frankie behind our backs, and I had seen that once I was out of the house and watching the
footage.
So I said to them, ‘You were bang out of order to me and Frankie in the house.
I’ve watched you since leaving the house, don’t forget, and I saw how much you were mugging
me right off in the diary room.
Do one!’