Big Brother 2024 – live: Sharon Osbourne, Fern Britton and Kate Middleton’s uncle enter ITV house

To whittle away the next 30 minutes until CBB begins, here’s our oral history on the original Channel 4 series featuring words from many who made it so special, including Davina McCall, Craig Phillips and Kate Lawler.

When Sharon Osbourne entered the Celebrity Big Brother house, it was highlighted that she is merely a “lodger” and not an official housemate.

The former X Factor judge, 71, has been given a secret task, and will be in charge of one person’s fate in the house – but it’s believed she will be leaving the series after approximately five days.

Why? Well, The Sun is reporting that ITV could not afford the fee she was asking for, which allegedly sat around £1.9m. Instead, it’s been claimed Osbourne agreed £500,000 for a shorter stint.

The much-hyped entrance of Kate Middleton’s playboy uncle into the Big Brother house will likely be met with dread by the royal family’s already overloaded PR team.

It’s been an exhausting 12 months for “The Firm”, with everything from major health shocks such as King Charles’s cancer diagnosis to severe embarrassment caused by Prince Andrew’s much-publicised friendship with late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

So Gary Goldsmith’s entrance into the CBB house on Monday will only induce shudders from those in Buckingham Palace who fear he will create more unwanted headlines.

Here we take a look at the ups and downs of the Princess of Wales’s “black sheep” uncle Gary Goldsmith:

Not everyone was a fan of last night’s CBB return.

One such person was writer Sean O’Grady, who argues that the reality show’s format is dated, and plundered a few old tropes and familiar faces from other shows – though not to much success.

Find O’Grady’s review of the launch episode for The Independent below.

Here is the Celebrity Big Brother 2024 housemates – all in one place for your viewing pleasure.

Going by the audience reaction during the live launch, this year’s favourites currently are: Nikita Kuzmin, Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, Marisha Wallace, Levi Roots, Bradley Riches and Fern Britton.

While he’s yet to elaborate on why, Will Best alerted his Instagram followers to the fact that he had a mini-health scare before the launch episode of Celebrity Big Brother.

He told his followers just one hour before the episode started on ITV: “So guys, this is nearly it. We’re basically one hour away from going live on Celebrity Big Brother 2024. I’ve literally just been given a clean bill of health by a paramedic. Thank you very much. It’s a long story.”

A lot of people are all expressing the belief that Kate Middleton’s Uncle Gary isn’t long for this series…

For anyone who was worrying about the legend in the crowd who missed a fist-bump with Levi Roots…

In an extremely bizarre moment on Celebrity Big Brother aftershow Late & Live, Ekin-Su’s mum, when asked if her daughter actually met an alien as she once claimed, said that her dad “is an alien” but asked everyone to “keep it a secret”.

Cue confused looks from guests Tom Allen and Oti Mabuse.

Tomorrow, two of the three endangered housemates – Gary, Zeze and David– will have to enter Sharon’s secret lair and plead their case for why they should stay in the house.

The housemate who fails to impress her will be facing eviction on Friday.