The David Platt actor won the second season of ITV’s revival of the series
Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd has lifted the lid on ‘what really happens’ behind the scenes on Celebrity Big Brother.
Jack returned to his On The Sofa podcast, which he hosts with Colson Smith and Ben Price, to discuss winning the ITV reality show.
In an interview that saw him discuss his game plan and being stunned by his win, Jack provided an insight into what it’s like being in the Big Brother House.
Expecting to go in for a ‘good time and a holiday’, Jack said it was the ‘production’ he liked the most as he revealed some of the tricks played on the housemates.
“Even things like going to bed at night, it’s either boiling or freezing. They put the aircon on and if you ask for it to go cold it’s hotter and if you ask for the heating it’s freezing.
“They massively mess with you. The aircons are like a jumbo jet thing, they stop you from sleeping. The lights go off but they’re still on.
“There’s more lights in the bedroom than when you [Colson] did it. They’re all above you. It’s to screw with your sleeping patterns to make people edgy. For me it’s fine because I’m not that bothered with sleeping,” he said.
Sadly for Jack, he had a ‘nightmare’ the night before entering the house as he only had an hour’s sleep while in isolation due to ‘thinking about nothing’.
“They kept us awake until 5.30am the first night. They’ll keep you awake until like 2am most nights. The shutters are down in the bedroom, you can’t even go in, If you do manage to get in they leave all the lights on so you can’t sleep. It’s like a lighthouse,” he said.
Asked about why he drank so much tea, Jack explained: “All it was for me was a bit of routine because they take the routine away from you. Say people go ‘I’m going to get up, brush my teeth, have a poo, get a shower, that’s my routine’.
“They stop you from doing that, they lock the bathrooms and close the bedrooms. You can go to the bathrooms in the hallway.”
When it comes to the moments viewers didn’t get to see, Jack shone a light on some of the conversations he had with Mickey Rourke prior to him being removed from the house.
“I spoke to him about films, none of it made the cut. I spoke to him about The Wrestler, he hated filming that. He didn’t enjoy it at all and didn’t expect to win the Oscar when he was up for it.
“He said ‘I knew there was no chance in hell Hollywood was going to give me that Oscar when I’ve been on the blacklist. I’ve been on the blacklist twice and now I’m on it a third time. I’m the only actor in history to be on it three times’. I said ‘I thought Hollywood loves a comeback’ and he said ‘depends who’s coming back”.
“He didn’t interact with many, if he did he might have said the odd sentence and that would be all he’d say that day. He was only there for four or five days,” he told Colson and Ben.
Saying he ‘wasn’t surprised’ that Mickey was asked to leave the show following his initial formal warning, Jack said that even on the day of his argument with Chris Hughes he referred to the diary room as ‘the dining room’.
Towards the end of the episode, Jack revealed what he spoke to Big Brother about when he was left on his own after being declared the winner.
“Basically he says ‘what are you thinking’. I started laughing, I don’t think this made the edit. You know the big screen they had, I was in the middle all along. I was the middle square the entire series and it’s like we knew all along” he joked.
