Brian Dowling reveals his Big Brother memories are "tainted" by manner of firing

By Neil Wilkes, Editor-in-chief | 4mo

Brian Dowling opens up on his firing as Big Brother host, saying that his experience was "tainted by how I was treated".

Former Big Brother host Brian Dowling has hit out at the show's production company for the way he was sacked in 2013.

The two-time winner of the iconic series took over from Davina McCall as main presenter when it switched from Channel 4 to Channel 5 in 2011, but he was abruptly dropped after two series and replaced by Emma Willis.

Both McCall and Willis have appeared in the E4 retrospective Big Brother: Best Shows Ever over the last fortnight, although mentions of Dowling have been kept to a minimum, prompting him to accuse the broadcaster of "trying to rewrite history".

Writing on Twitter yesterday, McCall revealed: "Just an FYI . We did ask @brianofficial to be part of the show. He was ultimate housemate!!!! That was a no brainer."

The post prompted Dowling to reply with a lengthy statement detailing his exit from the show under the title "FYI".

"I found out from The Sun newspaper that I was being fired and replaced, and it took the production company a further 4 weeks to confirm that, without a single apology, phone call, text, email or even a bunch of flowers or a single question asking how I was," he wrote.

"My whole time on the show was tainted by how I was treated and it still affects me today.

"The same production company asked if I wanted to film a 10 second message on my phone saying hello to you and Rylan. Surprisingly I didn't really feel like doing that."

Dowling first triumphed on the second series of Big Brother in 2001 before winning the all-stars edition, Ultimate Big Brother, in 2010.