Big Bother

Reading about the recent shenanigans of Big Brother’s Mike Goldman has got me thinking about an old job I used to have. Many, many years ago I was a “talent” manager for the evicted housemates on Big Brother. On paper, that was supposed to involve high-profile endorsement deals and media appearances; but usually consisted of organising a string of nightclub appearances in Geelong, Wollongong, Fremantle and the like.

Enough years have passed that most sensible people don’t care about the old BB housemates of the past, so I can probably start writing about the more amusing things which happened during my time at that job. Without naming names, these are some of my favourites…

One particularly dislodged individual had a habit of arriving to the office and trying to snort coke behind an upright clipboard. Apparently, this was an impenetrable force-field of invisibility. Usually, she’d thrust her head up afterwards like a meerkat and scream out something like “JEB! I’VE GOT AN IDEA, WE NEED TO SELL BARBIE DOLLS IN MY IMAGE, EXCEPT DRESSED LIKE LEATHER DOMINATRIXES”.

Then there was the bloke who managed to score an appearance in a fairly major advertising campaign. After phoning him to find out how it went, he mentioned that he was asked to get progressively more naked as the photo shoot went on. Thinking he meant he’d taken his shirt off, I assured him they wouldn’t run anything too saucy. This was when he offhandedly mentioned the photographer had asked him to take off his pants so photos of his arse could be taken. Then some shots of him hiding his junk with just his hands. All while nobody else was present. Inexplicably, he didn’t find any of this too bothersome, even though he’d been promised beforehand the shots would be rather innocent. The naughty shots never appeared in the ads, although I suspect they remain archived away on the external hard drive of some pervy photographer.

There were only two housemates I genuinely liked. One bloke was trying to use his new-found fame for good, and promote something near and dear to his heart. He was a good bloke and was willing to relatively compromise the sillier stuff he was being asked to do for the sake of his ultimate dream. Plus, I had a major boner for him and he tended to mysteriously get more nightclub gigs than the other housemates. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. Anyway, back in the day, all the housemates were asked to perform in a dreadful Christmas pantomime for charity on TV – he rightfully resisted, because he was being ask to do some incredibly humilating things. There’s nothing to help you understand why people in the media industry are cunts when a TV employee is screaming “SO HOW WILL IT LOOK WHEN WE EXPOSE YOU AS THE HOUSEMATE WHO HATES STARVING CHILDREN?” at a terrified, quivering bloke who just doesn’t want to be seen on TV braying in a two-man donkey suit.

There’s also the housemate who was kind enough to fill me in on what was being discussed during those scenes on Up Late where the camera mysteriously cut away to static footage of the backyard. “Oh, you know,” he nodded earnestly. “Mostly what drugs we’d been doing right before we entered the house, our favourite fuck stories, nothing too heavy.”

One particularly painful housemate had a weary habit of bursting into tears at the drop of a pin, when I eventually came to realise it was a highly manipulative emotional tool they could turn on in the switch of a button. When it was used with such frequency that they’d turn on the waterworks just to score a free Bacardi Breezer (then have the gall to wail even louder when the supplied beverage wasn’t mango-flavoured), you began to see through it all a little. I can’t be too harsh on this particular person, though – this was a long time ago, and they seem to have developed into a much saner individual.

As time went by, we eventually began ending the contracts of housemates we could no longer find work for. Or, in the case of one individual, were simply too much trouble to even bother with. I think my favourite phrase spat out by my co-worker in one of these situations was: “Look – at this stage, Australia can’t see you as anything other than a prostitute. The best thing you can do to continue making money for yourself is to open a brothel in your name.”

There was one particular incident which sticks in my mind above all others, though. One of the lesser-known (and much less likable) housemates was really giving a career in the media a red-hot go. They were well-known for being an employee of a particular company while BB was on air. By coincidence, this particular company fell into a very public and very controversial bankruptcy shortly after she was evicted from the show. “Eureka!” I thought – here’s her chance to get into the media, seeing as she was virtually a celebrity employee of the company. This would have her face all over the papers and on TV, without question.

So I went ahead and organised a string of media appearances for her. Frankly, I surprised myself with how much interest there was in her, and things really looked like they were about to turn around.

The scheduled date for all these interviews? September 11, 2001. Not to discount the awful events of that day, but is there any surer sign from the universe that you should be rethinking your career?

Tagged as: TV, Work