Ofcom clear Christopher Biggins’ biphobic Celebrity Big Brother comments
By Josh Lee
Celebrity Big Brother
was cleared of wrongdoing by Ofcom after Christopher Biggins’ biphobic comments sparked a number of complaints when they aired on August 1.
The former I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! was criticised after a conversation in which he suggested that bisexual people were being dishonest about their orientation. He described the bi community as “people not wanting to admit they are gay”.
He also claimed that HIV/AIDS was a “bisexual disease,” which saw him removed from the house.
“Gays had been really badly treated, then suddenly they became respected. Then a killer disease came that was attributed to homosexuals,” he said.
“I think it was a bisexual disease to be honest.
“What they didn’t realise were a lot of bisexuals who went to [third world] countries and had sex with those people and brought it back to their own families in America, and that’s how it became a worldwide disease.”
He has since apologised for the comments, telling the Sun: “I have a lot of bisexual friends and I’m not in any way a bigoted person. I’m 67 and I love everybody. I live in Hackney and I have a lot of black neighbours who are fantastic. It’s just not in my vocabulary that word. So to be chastised for those sorts of things is very sad.”
Despite the criticism, Ofcom said that his comments were “within the audience’s expectations”.
They added: “We investigated whether a discussion between Christopher Biggins and Renee Graziano about the sexual orientation of bisexual people was offensive.
“We accepted that these remarks made in Celebrity Big Brother were capable of causing offence, but they were likely to be within the audience’s expectations of this programme.”
Read more
Leo Kalyan releases stunning video for new single, ‘F*cked Up’: WATCH
X Factor contestant Freddy Parker’s bulge may have broken the internet: WATCH