Spot on

He hasn't seen the show and thought the producers telling him to stay was 'extra treatment'

It wasn't

No great revelation, just misinterpretation by Perez

..which has filtered down to the perhaps less discerning viewers

Was that all? In which case, I don't know what all the fuss is about.

Apparently, Anna from BB1 was coached in the diary room quite regularly to help stop her from walking. She mentioned this when she came out of the house in radio interviews, but this information has been mysteriously erased and/or forgotten over time...

Yes and I can pinpoint when it happened. Do you recall when he had really had enough in the DR saying he wanted to go? There was a pause and then the secret room plan manifested itself. I posted at the time saying they had the room prepared/made up already but maybe were not planning to use it for him. It felt tactical.

Well done Perez for exposing it!

How can anyone be surprised at that? BB are puppeteers! What's more that is probably a key reason they axed live feed, i.e. in order to be able to better manipulate our voting with how the edit the show. If they kept live feed on, then that wouldn't have been so easily done.

Like I say "who goes...the editing helps you decide"

Oh yes, I completely forgot about that.

Or, was the massive ego of Perez simply more important to him than the needs of the shows producers?

To be fair, we can't say that for sure unless we know that the producers always tell the potential quitters about the viewing figures - because that is what sticks out here.

I'm not saying I agree with other's outrage but I have never heard of that happening before, just that producers generally try to convince them to stay, no specific show info mentioned (and, as I asked in a previous post, I don't know if it's ever been admitted directly by a HM before either?)
Perez may have also compared notes with Nadia when she wanted to leave, and from that ascertained that he was told things that she wasn't? Who knows... It's not outside the realms of possibility.

Again, whilst I personally don't think it's a huge deal, I can understand why some would see it as a new level of manipulation.

The manipulation from producers is obviously, specifically in the Celeb version, because they want to get their monies worth, and I think Perez acting like an idiot took them by surprise a little so I have no doubt production moved heaven and earth to preserve this (In fairness to them, the perez 'twist' really worked) I don't have a huge problem with little breaks in the celeb version to be honest, its exactly the same as I'm a Celeb or any of these shows that they have edited storyline, showmances etc.. all egged on by producers for our entertainment and for me CBB this year has been Entertaining so I'm not too bothered about the producers being involved. The Channel 5 CBB is a straight reality show now but its pulling in the punters so they must be doing something right. (It needed some form of rejuvenation, it was dying on 4)

Civilian BB is different as its a gameshow/reality and therefore each HM should get an even shot at the money and should try to preserve the social experiment aspect of it and to mark it as different from CBB which follows (But I haven't watched Civvy BB in years so I can't comment on what its like now)

I hear you

I think they'll say what they can to sway them though

Not every contestant has caused that much sensation so it's not often they can use it (viewing figures etc) for leverage, I see no controversy in them using it to try keep him in

Added to it the fact that so many had walked/pushed already

Yeah I don't disagree with any of that

Sometimes people forget that TV is, first and foremost, a business!

It seems to me like maybe people are looking fo something that makes what Perez said different from every other example, because they're reacting differently. But I'm finding it hard to find anything in what people are saying that ought to make so big a difference.

Take viewing figures, for example. We know HMs sometimes get information about who's popular and who isn't. That seems much worse to me than a HM learning what the viewing figures are. What's the big deal about viewing figures? Why would they be the deal-breaker? I find it hard to think viewing figures would be a deal-breaker for many people.

Or learning something from a producer. There's a post above that sees it as significant that Perez knew the name of a producer. HMs often know the name of a producer. And the post says "the housemates rarely meet producers//Big Brother. But HMs often talk with producers//Big Brother in the DR. We see that in many highlights shows. When a HM wants to leave, they talk with producers/BB in the DR.

I think it's much worse that BB arranged a fake walk-out twist for Perez than that a producer told him viewing figures were high.

Like others have already said, the producers have had a heavy hand in what has gone on in the show ever since it first aired. They knew what Nick was doing in BB1 but the whole 'Nasty Nick' thing was gathering pace the longer Nick stayed in and a lot of people were tuning in to see what he'd do next. Even when the housemates found out about his notes they didn't kick him out straightaway. In fact, if the housemates hadn't kicked up such a stink about him staying I think they would have kept him in.

Then during the whole race row with Shilpa, Jade, Jo, Jack and Danielle it came out during the investigation afterwards that one night they were all making up limericks about Shilpa trying to think of words which rhymed with 'P**i'. They wanted to keep the controversy going for as long as possible because it was getting them headlines.

I already mentioned about Caoimhe from BB11 getting outside information to persuade her to stay, she did leave eventually but not when Shabby left.

Well, as far as Perez's comments went, it was insinuated to him that the viewing figures were high because of him. It could be argued that him having that information (and, as far we know, no other housemate being party to it) gave him an advantage, even if it were just that he had confidence in his behaviour.

But yes, I absolutely agree with you that it was far more manipulative to put him in the secret room. Although, some may argue that in itself was another advantage they gave him to stop him leaving, which could prove their point that he was getting special treatment from producers overall and that manipulation is getting worse - after all, Nadia didn't get to go in a secret room after asking to leave! I don't think we've ever seen the secret room twist happen like that before, either.

As I said though, I don't necessarily disagree that it's all par for the course these days.

That's the point, they talk to "Big Brother" they are not to know producers because of fear or favour i.e they can use it to their advantage if they know a producer personally. An example of this would be a company doing a competition and the T's and C's say "no family member or employee may enter". Same thing with Big Brother, A HM know a producer or is a family member, they go on to win £150,000 and the general public think they have been voting in a fair game, they haven't, that's why they rarely get to meet "Big Brother" and you often hear them say in the DR "oh I like that ones voice" because they have no clue which producer they're talking to.

Surely they do different things with different HMs. It wouldn't make sense to give someone a phone call, for example, if that wouldn't change their mind. So so what if some exact thing they told Perez hadn't been told to anyone else?


I still don't understand why you think it being "admitted directly by a HM" is so significant. Do you think no HM has ever talked before about what was said to them? Victor has told us about conversations he had with producers in bb5. I'm sure other HMs in other series have too, but it didn't seem important enough to remember the specifics.

In your earlier post, the idea seemed to be that hearing it from a HM took it out of the realm of "rumours and conjecture", but we've had information that wasn't rumour and conjecture before.

Talking to a producer doesn't mean knowing them personally. Nor does knowing a producer's name.


It's not true that they always have no clue which producer they're talking to.

Perez knowing a produer's name, or talking with a producer, is not at all the same as the sort of "no family member or employee may enter" example you're using.

I wonder if Rylan will be in some trouble for not nipping that one in the bud ?

I think that if Perez won, and then talked about how BB had persuaded him to stay, it would mostly be different people who were bothered by it. It would be people who disliked Perez who were up in arms about manipulation and so on. But now it seems to be mostly people who don't like him being evicted, or think he was treated badly by the show (as in used and then discarded), don't like how much he was booed, or the way he was interviewed, and so on. That dissatisfaction then makes what he said about being persuaded seem more significant and more like it discredits the show.

Good point.

I wonder which fan sites they were.

Well yes, I'm sure it's true that producers don't treat everyone the same. I was simply making the point, as I did in reply to your post above, that getting information about how the viewing figures are in relation to your own BB performance could be considered, by some, to be an advantage. After all, there is a reason that BB now regularly include tasks on detailing who's popular etc - it puts the cat amongst the pigeons. Surely one housemate having that info over anyone else (and getting it off the record, away from the cameras) could arguably be seen as unfair? Again - I personally don't care but I can understand it.

As for the thing about hearing it directly from a HM, I wasn't party to Victor's posts so can't comment on that, but I'll try and make my point clearer for you:

A) We've always seen HMs get info from the outside world as part of tasks etc
B) We've always heard rumours that so and so got to talk to this person, that person etc
C) the info we've known that has been given in the past hasn't been as significant to the game as this info was, to my knowledge at least (so, for example, it could be argued that a HM getting info on their family isn't as advantageous as getting info on the actual show itself)

Both of those first points could be quite easy for people to rationalise if they wanted to, because in the case of A) we've seen those events with our own eyes as part of the show and with B) it is easy for people to dismiss those rumours, or to ignore them if they want to. For C), as I said, there's arguably a difference between the 'types' of info.

To have a HM say outright on BOTS, with a relatively stunned presenter looking on, that they were told specific information that presumably other housemates were not, could be considered by some to be very different to the above for reasons I've outlined - and, to my knowledge, a HM has never admitted that themselves before.

As I said in my earlier post to you, everyone sees things differently, people will view events through their own filters and experiences and agendas and what have you. I'm just trying to put across here that actually, to an extent, I can see both sides of this thread. Perez's statement tonight was slightly different to anything we've heard or seen before, as outlined above, and as I said in my previous post to you, I'm sure many would argue that it is a step too far given the secret room timing.

I've also said I don't disagree with a lot of what you've said, too.

I think the reason people are seeing this as such a big deal is because it is an accumulation of things. If it was just a one off then i think people would just deal with it and move on but it's just constant now on this show.

Big Brother are wearing the fans out. The constant meddling, the outside information, the nomination rules, the manipulation, it is all too much to deal with. For me, tonights stuff is the worst because they hiding things from us. I don't like finding things out like this because it makes it impossible to trust the show. It is just like the time when we found out about Rylan leaving the house for rehearsals for his X Factor tour. It eventually get's to the point where people just can't take it anymore and the smallest of thing set's people off. Nobody likes to be made a fool of and since the move to Channel 5, we have been getting made fools of worse than ever.

And he stayed so it was his choice,

I do think if a housemate either celeb(slept with celeb) or civilian/(slept with celeb) from now on ever says I want to leave they should be immediately thrown out in whatever garments they have on.

My thoughts exactly.

Perez stated that he had never watched the show () IF, what he said is true then, he may think, that, BB has given HIM special treatment.

Could be that he got the usual run of the mill, 'there, there' pep talk, which, unfortunately, inflated his ego even more.

I have no idea what you're on about chap, not a ****ing clue however context of my original post may assist you in admitting I am right, You're always welcome.