“Homophobic” housemate Laura voted out of Big Brother House
The housemate that placed Channel 4 in another row over Big Brother has been voted out of the Big Brother House by viewers. Laura received 66 per cent of the public vote.
The contestant who dreams of owning her own funeral home was convinced that she was going to be evictited tonight.
Earlier this week, Channel 4 was forced to respond to complaints that they treated homophobia less seriously than racism in the reality TV programme after Laura used the word “poof” in a derogative way for a second time. She first used the word to imply that another housemate, Liam, was not masculine.
PinkNews.co.uk readers had complained that earlier in the series the use of the word ‘nigger’ had seen one housemate removed, but the ‘poof’ incident went unpunished.
A spokesperson told PinkNews.co.uk: “We took the initial view that Laura’s use of the word ‘poof’ in reference to Liam was not derogatory, no housemate was offended and was unlikely to cause offence to viewers.
“However, some viewers were offended and, having taken account of these concerns, we subsequently agreed with producers at Endemol to take appropriate action if there was any repeat of the comment in a similar context.
“When Laura used the word ‘poof’ a second time in a similar context in direct reference to Liam she was called into the diary room and told that the use of such language was potentially offensive and therefore unacceptable.”
Contestant Laura had used the homophobic word in front of a gay housemate, Gerry, last night.
She questioned whether it was an acceptable word for her to use, but Gerry told her it was ‘fine.’
In the diary room Laura accepted that the word was offensive.
