If you know your reality shows, we’ve all heard of the Strictly curse by now, but let me one up you with the Big Brother curse.
This can be broken down into two parts: couples forming within the big brother house ruining any previous relationships the contestants had before the show, and the extreme amount of inappropriate hate comments used by contestants which are seen as comedic rather than straight up wrong. However, in the most recent season, unacceptable comments by housemates George and Caroline were addressed by the housemates and the production team, so we will focus on the former point.
When talking about big brother relationships, the main study has to be Jojo Siwa and Chris Hughes on Celebrity Big Brother starting in April 2025. The former dance moms star and owner of the “Jojo bow” came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community in 2021, and was in a relationship with Kath Ebbs, which she ended at the Big Brother after-party.
Siwa and Hughes’ blossoming relationship sparked audience interest through the coverage of them spending each night together “cuddling” in the same bed. They specified during and directly after the show that this was merely platonic, but revealed they were in an exclusive relationship shortly after.
Some were shocked that Jojo was dating a man again, therefore never previously specifying her exact sexuality, but the majority of watchers found Jojo’s direct cheating on the show disgraceful, alongside many concerns of the 10 year age gap between the two.
A similar “curse” was threatened in the most recent season of big brother, with housemates Zelah Glasson and Sam Ashby, despite Zelah being in a committed relationship with now popular TikTok creator Francesca. After Zelah had made a comment that flirting was still allowed within his current relationship dynamic, his relationship with Sam became significantly flirty and intense.
Although nothing explicit happened, Sam commented after the show that their emotions about Zelah were complicated and the “relationship” developed in the house was labeled as extremely “messy”. Zelah is still with his girlfriend, however that does not stop fans from speculating and also feeling sorry for Sam, who admitted they had started to develop feelings for their housemate.
This seems like the start of a pattern of these relationships developing within the house and causing discomfort in audiences as well as changing relationship dynamics in existing relationships and between those in the house, just from the last year of Big Brother alone.
Image Credit – The Movie DB, People.com
