Big Brother’s Matthew: ‘I am camp. I just embrace it.’
It’s all hotting up in the Big Brother house. So far ‘armageddon week’ has seen a surprise eviction (bye bye, Marlon!), the introduction of three new housemates (hiyyyyyaaaaa Zoe Birkett!) and the seedlings of a showmance between Christopher and Merseyside Mark. With all this in mind, we called up one of our favourite housemates from the series – the sadly departed Matthew Davies – to chat all things BB.
So have you acclimatised yet to being back in the real world?
“Yeah, I’m absolutely fine really. It’s a bit odd when you do come out, you sort of wish you could go back in there! I think either way, if I had have stayed in there I’d have had a miserable time anyway. I’d rather be in there, but it’s quite nice to be out to see everyone and catch up on what I’ve missed.”
What made you apply to go on the show in the first place?
“For me it was the experience. I think a lot of people really do go in there for fame, for recognition, for things like validation. And I’m not gonna lie, yeah, [fame] appeals to me slightly but there was nothing I expected or specifically went after. I went through a conventional education and a conventional career after uni. I just wanted to do something different really. For me, Big Brother was my solution.”
Interesting solution! Had you been a fan of previous series?
“I was always a huge fan of Big Brother and I’ve watched pretty much every series since it started. In the last few years I’ve loved tweeting about it, ranting, and dishing my opinions out on everyone, so I thought ‘what better than actually being in the show myself and experiencing it fully?’”
Who’s your favourite contestant ever?
“I have two. One is Sam Pepper from the final series on Channel 4. I don’t really have much affinity with him, but I just liked the fact that he went in there, really threw himself into it and stirred up trouble. I loved his personality. My other favourite of all time is probably Makosi. She was just so pretentious. She really didn’t give a crap what anyone thought. She just really didn’t care and was hilarious to watch.”
You must have thought before you went on the show about how the public might perceive you…
“I wasn’t really sure what my angle would be. When you audition you have no idea about how they’re going to portray you. There were two things I thought they’d have to include. I thought they’d pretty much portray me as this very camp man that people would see as a closet gay. I thought that they would probably want people to talk about my sexuality – and doubt it. I also thought that people would probably latch onto the fact that I was seen as quite posh and a rich, spoiled, judgmental boy in contrast to the other housemates. When I went in there I realised very quickly that it was the fact that I stood out as a bit more posh and yeah, sort of more academic or classy than the other housemates.”
When you were evicted and watched your best bits, I remember you saying ‘Oh my God, I sound so camp and posh’.
“It’s nothing that I’m against or anything, it’s just that when you hear your own voice you get so embarrassed about it! If anyone watches themselves back, it’s always really cringey. But yeah, I sort of sounded really camp and posh. In real life I don’t really think I’m much of either.”
You said on your VT – and you’ve just said again – that normally people just assume that you’re gay. Does that ever get tiresome?
“Not at all, really. When I was about six years old I went to a Jewish school. Before that I’d literally never really been friends with someone who wasn’t Jewish, someone who wasn’t white or someone who wasn’t straight. At a young age I realised, ‘Okay I’m different, and they’re calling me gay’. As I got older I became a lot more confident in myself and just thought ‘Well, I’m not like everybody else, tpeople seem to think I’m a unique character’. I am camp, and I just embraced it really, so it doesn’t really bother me what people say. People still do it all the time and I’ve learned to take it on the chin, really.”
You’ve been out the house for more than a week now. Have you watched any of the show back yet?
“I’ve watched the first two episodes including the launch – obviously my cringey entrance. I had to see how bad it actually was! I’ve watched a few clips on YouTube, some of the arguments and obviously the big argument with Helen. So a few bits here and there – I’m working my way through.”
You did seem really nervous going into the house…
“The problem with me is that I am quite confident in myself, but when I came out to enter the house and I saw [the audience] staring at me, I literally cracked in that second and I thought ‘Oh my dear God!’. I did say to Emma [Willis] ‘what am I doing on here?’ but I very much knew that it was something I wanted to do beforehand, and it was something I’d thought about very long and hard. I became very anxious in the moment, really. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but I get awkward when attention is thrown on me sometimes.”
Let’s talk about Helen then. I think one of the funniest moments of the series so far was when you referred to her as “a skidmark of society”. What do you think her problem is?
“It’s hard. I don’t really don’t what she’s been through in her life or what kind of environment she’s grown up in. In the beginning we were actually friendly and I caught onto the fact that she’s a very passionate person. If she really likes someone, she really feels positive and she’ll express it. And that’s the same when she feels negative, she has to say it. She’s very, very direct. She’s quite a brutal person, in that she’s so used to being around people that are confrontational, or so open with each other, that she says it. I think it’s just the tone sometimes that really shocks people. But I don’t really know. I’ve not really met people like that in my life. I can’t really comprehend it, so it’s really hard for me to comment on.”
Well you were one of the few people that actually stood up to her. Why aren’t more people in the house doing that?
“She’s a very, very intimidating person. When we did get in an argument, I was slightly intimidated by her, but I don’t rise to that level, I don’t give people the satisfaction they want. I do like to think that I’m one step ahead of them and in our main argument, I sat back because I knew she would make a fool of herself. And to me, there’s life after Big Brother. I don’t need to ruin my life by standing up on TV and calling someone twenty malicious names.”
Do the other housemates feel the same, do you think?
“A lot of the housemates are very aware of the cameras and the public perception. A lot of people are more clever than they make out they are. They know that once you’ve been in an argument you are evicted. Toya obviously was seen as quite confrontational, and she was evicted. And I think people are very scared of that – if they do confront people, or Helen, they’re gonna get evicted. Helen on the other hand, I think she probably would be the same person if she didn’t have that pass to the final, so she’d probably be evicted. But we all wondered if, because she had the final pass, maybe she felt that she could just use it and be 100% her complete self, which some of the others may not entirely be doing.”
Steven strikes me as someone who seems very aware of the cameras and the public perception. Why do you think he’s not kind of reigned it back with Kimberly? He must realise how cringey it comes across.
“I think he has absolutely no idea. Steven is a really lovely, genuine guy and we got on very well, even though they may not have shown it so much on cameras. I think he’s probably not clicking with the young viewers, because he [acts] kind of ten years above his age. In terms of the Kimberly situation, I’m not sure he’s aware at all how that’s coming across. Even when I was in that house I wasn’t really aware of how it doesn’t seem that Kimberly’s reciprocating it much. I think that if I’m completely honest about Steven, he’s not the most intelligent person in that house, so he’s probably not entirely able to understand that what he’s doing could be perceived as wrong by the outside world.”
Another relationship that is sort of starting is Mark and Christopher. What do you make of that?
“It’s quite funny to watch, because obviously the two of them were probably my closest friends in that house. There were lots of looks that were going on between them. At one point, though, Mark had a conversation with me about how he wasn’t really keen on Christopher as a person. If I’m honest, not to blow my own trumpet, I do think they might have bonded over the fact that I left, and they both missed me a lot, so I brought them together.”
Are you surprised though?
“In the house neither of them really spoke about their sex lives or their types of men, they kept it all very quiet. But I am quite surprised. It’s an odd situation. I think that Christopher did fancy Mark in the beginning, but Mark had absolutely no idea. I’m not sure it’s entirely genuine. In that house it’s very intense, very claustrophobic and you become very close with people you don’t really know very quickly. So who really knows what’s got them to that point in their relationship.”
Christopher does seem like a really nice guy, but he keeps getting nominated – why is that?
“Christopher is an absolutely lovely boy, he’s one of the most intelligent people in that house. He mentioned to people about how when he was at school he was never really accepted and they found him quite annoying. I think the issue with him – and it’s really hard to say it as a mate – but you can only take him in small doses. And unfortunately in that house he was quite scapegoated. He’s not friends with everyone, he doesn’t arse-lick people, he doesn’t really conspire to cliques – he just does his own thing. Within that house, some people think that if you don’t have fun and get drunk every night you’re not cool.”
Danielle is a bit confusing, I’m not really sure what to make of her. Where do you stand?
“It’s really hard. Obviously I’ve come out of the house now, so I’ve seen a lot on the internet. I watched that programme the other night about webcam girls, which she was in. She’s a very intelligent girl and spoke quite a lot about celebrity culture and public marketing in the house. So I think she has gone in there with an agenda. I genuinely don’t know whether she has a game plan to play the good girl, but when we did speak I really felt this energy from her, she’s probably one of the nicest girls in there.”
Finally, what’s next for you now, Matthew?
“I have absolutely no idea! I really hope that eventually I can just go back to an ordinary job and be taken seriously in the real world, because obviously going onto Big Brother, I was hoping it wouldn’t affect future career prospects. I love to do writing and blogging. I’m working on that at the moment, so hopefully I can go and do that now that I can use Big Brother as a platform. But I don’t really know, I’m just taking everything as it comes really. I didn’t really go in there to expect to be some sort of famous celebrity. So I guess we’ll just see!”
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