'Fame Doesn't Last Forever' - Former Big Brother Star Orlaith McAllister Warns Housemates

As this year’s Big Brother series heats up, former contestant Orlaith McAllister has issued a stark warning to housemates, insisting that the fame that comes with starring on reality TV doesn’t last forever.

Orlaith appeared as a contestant on Big Brother 6 in 2005, entering via the ‘Secret Garden’ on day 29 before joining the main house days later. The Belfast native walked from the show on day 65, weeks before the final that was eventually won by Anthony Hutton.

Reflecting on her own experience on the iconic series, Orlaith shares how doubts set in during her time in the house on how she was being perceived by the public, compared to her other housemates, and how she felt ‘judged’ for turning to glamour modelling following her stint on the show.

Speaking to BoyleSports Games , official sponsors of Big Brother on Virgin Media, Orlaith also touches on the current rivalry between housemates Hanah and Martha, as she insists producers are keen to entertain such situations with ‘smart’ edits as it’s ‘entertaining’ for the viewers.

‘People Judged Me for Glamour Modelling… It Made Me Feel Like I Had Done Something Wrong’

I think in an environment like Big Brother, because you're there 24/7 for so many weeks, your mind starts to wander and you look at other people and you think, ‘Are they going to do better than me outside of the house? Have they got a better momentum going for them?’ You know, jealousy sets in. There would be a lot going through your head as to how you're going to decipher the outside world after and what your career is going to look like, if any.

I would say there are a lot of housemates who try too hard and there would be the housemates who are looking at the ones trying too hard and thinking, ‘Do they need to?’ Everyone goes in with an idea of how they want to portray themselves and how they want to be, but you'd like to think that they'd be smarter now because there's been so much reality TV - that they wouldn't be silly and make mistakes for themselves because it doesn't fit well with the public in the long run.

It's for the rest of your life as well. I suppose I did, for a while, judge myself whenever I came out of the house and I had obviously done glamour modelling. That's not a big bad thing but there were some people that would have said ‘How could you have done that?’ It kind of made me feel like I had done something wrong.

I suppose for a while that kind of prevented me, and I suppose there was an element of fear, going out into the big bad world of real work and a 9 to 5 job. I have been extremely lucky in the companies that I've worked for and with the people that I've worked with, that they have been amazing, they have just treated me like me.

I don't feel that I have to put any kind of pretense on. I don't need to pretend that I'm something that I'm not, I'm fully educated and I have a degree in business studies. I've done my whole education. I never thought I wanted to ever work a 9 to 5, but now I am, I love it, so I suppose I've had the best of both worlds really.

But you need to be very careful in reality TV, as to how you're going to look from the outside world because it doesn't last forever for some people. For some it does and it's lucky that they can make a good career out of it, I suppose in a way that's down to management and being smart but you do have to be extremely careful just to make sure that you can get right into the world of work if you need to.

Rivalries Keep the Viewers ‘Entertained’ and Producers Are ‘Smart’ With Edits

Rivalries will always happen and arguments will always happen because that's everyday life. It keeps the viewers entertained, as long as it can be squashed quickly and nothing hurtful is said. Though I wouldn’t like to be experiencing that now. I suppose there's a bit of smartness as well with Big Brother and how they edit things and the production team, how they edit things. You have to remember it’s TV and [they] want to keep [you] on and the viewing ratings to go up.

In my time in the house, I suppose there was Makosi, Vanessa, Kamal and Derek when I entered the house. They went to areas and started going behind my back without me knowing. I could have been sitting in their company one minute and left and then they would have called me names.

I had people come up to me in the street and say ‘I could have broken my TV. I was screaming, you had just left a room and then they were backstabbing you and you didn't know when you were so nice to them. Putting myself into that house, it is like you're living and breathing that environment so you're going to get caught up in the moment.

I suppose I leaned towards Makosi a lot in that house. In a way I wish I had got to know Saskia and Maxwell a wee bit better but I listened to Makosi saying that Saskia was jealous of me. I look back on that now and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, it was just for TV’, you know. I suppose in a way it was kind of their group, with Anthony and Craig it was a wee bit more fun and they were a wee bit more up for the craic, you know, whereas the others were quite b***hy.

There were the two groups, Science was just on his own rapping all the time and then there was Eugene who was Mr Sensible and always had something nice to say. Do you know what, looking back on it now there were certain things that you could have done differently, but it was the way it was meant to be.

You Have to Be Thick-Skinned to Do Reality TV

Going back to my 25-year-old self, I was probably extremely nervous [going into Big Brother]. It’s still young to be doing something like that, that was 20 years ago. I’ve really grown up since then. I was naive, I suppose I did let people walk over me. I suppose I was just hoping to be liked and not everyone's going to like you, you have to just take it as it is.

You have to be thick-skinned going into these reality TV shows, you know. I've had people come up to me in bars and be horrible to me. I think you just have to just not give a reaction, that's what they want. You learn as time goes on, you learn not to give the reaction that they want. Everyone wants a reaction from you and if it's in a negative way, it's something that they can really play on. Whereas if you just let it happen, let it be said, that's on them.

“I Needed Reassurance From My Family”

[On the show], I did miss my family, I just needed reassurance from them that what I had done in the house they were okay with. I suppose once you have that you're okay. If you have a tight, close-knit family and you're not harming anyone then they'll always be supportive.

There was a love day and it was quite funny because the Big Brother production [team] went out to our families and it was quite cool. They went and they had to interview your family, they went around to my hairdressers and all like, it was crazy. They went to your bedroom.

I remember when we were sitting around and - this is what reality TV is like as well, like you can't lie about your life, you really can't - as stupid as this sounds, the majority of the housemates that were sitting around lied about what their bedrooms looked like. Mine was just a basic attic room, a four-door wardrobe that me and my dad built. You know, I was very honest about my bedroom.

Don't make stuff up about something like that and then they go into your bedroom and that’s not your bedroom that you described.

I remember my dad being interviewed and I think one of my sisters was in it, but my mum wouldn’t get interviewed and none of my other sisters. I have four sisters and only one of them sat in the interview. I would have thought that my dad would have told me ‘We love you. We're so supportive, keep going.’ and I remember him just saying ‘Your cousin got married,’ and I went, ‘I don't need to hear that. I need to hear that you are okay with me in here.’ I wasn't overly close to a few of my cousins, all I needed was a bit of reassurance.

After, we spoke about it, me and my dad, and I was like, ‘You just told me that my cousin got married, I wasn't even invited to the wedding. Why would you even tell me that, give me a bit of support?’ Everyone else's family was supporting them and I was just sitting there. He just had the fear of all these cameras and my mum, she's a frantic cleaner, so she was just constantly cleaning the house. I think she even made the guys in the production team take their shoes off to go upstairs to my bedroom. I just know that she would have.

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