An Oral History of Celebrity Big Brother’s “David’s Dead” Episode

Emma Willis (former Big Brother presenter): I would go into work, go into my room, they’d bring me a copy of the show and I’d sit and watch it before we went into a script meeting. And then we’d sit down together and talk it all through. And then you’d go into rehearsals. In the script meeting, there are probably between five and eight people around the table, so lots of different opinions.

Darren Day (former housemate): I’ll be candid with you. It’s well documented that I’m in recovery – I was addicted to drugs and booze. I did the first ever series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2002, and my first day in the jungle was my first day sober for five years. I went cold turkey in front of the whole nation and my behaviour was incredibly erratic.

So when I got offered to be on Big Brother in 2016, I was sober and lived my life very differently, so thought, Well, if I do this now, perhaps the British public can make a different opinion of me. So that’s why I did it. But, honestly, it was crazy… I think I found the jungle easier.

The day the episode aired

Bentley: I was going into the studio, and I was just about to leave my house when my friend who worked on post-production rang me up and said, “Get yourself in quick. You’re never going to believe what’s happened.” When I got to work, I went into the editing Portakabin and he shut the door and said, “Have a look at this.” And I looked and couldn’t take my eyes away. It was a jaw-dropping moment.

Willis: I remember watching it. I got into work that day, and the first thing I normally say is “What’s tonight’s episode like, is it good?” and everybody just looked at me and was like, “You’ve never seen anything quite like it.” I watched it in my dressing room, because obviously we watch it earlier on, and I just sat there with my jaw on the floor pretty much from the moment they take Angie to the diary room… [That day], half of the production meeting was taken up deconstructing what had happened, and everyone just being blown away by the fact that it had even happened.

As it happened

Day: I remember it incredibly vividly. David Gest was a really good mate of mine. (I sang “Bring Him Home” from Les Misérables at his funeral.) So David was very poorly that day. We thought he had flu or something. On this particular day, David had been taken out of the house for tests. He came back two hours later, and said “I’m going for a sleep.”

A few moments later, Angie Bowie was called into the diary room and told that David Bowie had died: her ex-husband, the father of her son. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like while she was on a reality show. She came out. The only other person that was in the house was Tiffany – we were in the garden – and Angie just said “David’s dead.” We just remember seeing Tiffany jump up and down hysterically in the house – I thought there was a spider. She just came running out screaming “David’s dead!” I just thought, Shit… maybe he has [died]. I start running towards the bedroom and everyone comes with me. So as we ran into the room and looked at his bed, he was in it, but the sheet was pulled up over his head like someone had died.

Christopher Maloney (former housemate): David slept in the bed next to me. We used to talk about Liza Minnelli and Michael Jackson and also his surgery – because I’d just gotten my surgery. But it was weird with the “David’s dead” situation because David had so much surgery on his eyes that he couldn’t actually close his eyes. He used to sleep next to me and put ointment in his eyes so he didn’t get any infections because he couldn’t close them. So when me and Darren Day had to check that he was alive, we said “David, are you dead?”. But because he slept with his eyes open, he just sat up and said [puts on an American accent] “No, I’m alive.”