Marco Sabba

| colspan="2" style="background:#cccccc; text-align:center;"| Big Brother UK |
| colspan="2" style="background:#000000;"| |
| colspan="2" style="background:#dddddd; text-align:center;"| Series 5 (2004)(with day of eviction) |
| |Nadia Almada | Day 71 (Winner) |
| |Jason Cowan | Day 71 (Runner-up) |
| |Daniel Bryan | Day 71 |
| |Michelle "Shell" Jubin | Day 71 |
| |Stuart Wilson | Day 69 |
| |Michelle Bass | Day 64 |
| |Victor Ebuwa | Day 57 |
| |Ahmed Aghil | Day 50 |
| |Becki Seddiki | Day 43 |
| |Marco Sabba | Day 36 |
| |Vanessa Nimmo | Day 29 |
| |Emma Greenwood | Day 23 (housemate safety) |
| |Kathryn "Kitten" Pinder | Day 8 (rule-breaking) |
|
Big Brother UK series 5 in 2004 was the fifth season of Big Brother in the UK, a reality show shown on Channel 4 in which a number of contestants live in an isolated house trying to avoid being evicted by the public with the aim of winning a large cash prize at the end of the run.

What Happened

Trailed as "Big Brother turns evil", it was controversial from the start. The house was smaller and more claustrophobic; there was one bedroom; and the prize money of £100,000 was reduced if housemates failed their tasks. Big Brother promised tougher challenges as well as surprises to test the minds of housemates. The makers were initially criticised for choosing contestants specifically to boost ratings, opting for people that were openly gay (Marco and Dan), transsexual (Nadia Almada), a former asylum seeker (Ahmed), and a person who claimed to be bisexual (Jason, although he later revealed that this had been a fabrication to improve his chances of being selected). This feeling soon dissipated to a large extent as the personalities of the housemates overshadowed these issues.

The housemates were all strong, opinionated characters. Kitten Pinder was evicted in the first week for constant rule-breaking. A fake eviction in the second week saw two of the housemates, Emma and Michelle, confined to the nearby "Big Brother Bedsit" where they could see and hear what was happening in the house without the others knowing. After their return to the house, scenes of aggression and near-violence erupted resulting in on-site security staff having to enter the house for the first time in the show's history. Some viewers of the live feed also called the police; after a short investigation, a joint statement by Hertfordshire police and producers Endemol said that they were satisfied with steps being taken to ensure housemates' safety and well-being. Police were also reportedly questioning each contestant as they left the house. Emma was moved back to the bed-sit and later evicted permanently. A psychologist on the show resigned, claiming that his warnings that Endemol's deliberate selection of housemates likely to cause conflict would lead to the fight went unheeded.

Since the fight there were many arguments, and several housemates received formal warnings from Big Brother, but nothing on the scale of what producers refer to as "Day 20" or "Fight Night". Following an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live Emma and Victor clashed again and had to be separated by the security on the show.

A surprise new housemate, Becki Seddiki, was evicted at the first opportunity. She had been told by Big Brother to (based on first impressions) kiss one of the housemates and that housemate would be up for eviction. This became known as the "Judas kiss". She chose Michelle, which proved a highly unpopular choice and this is probably the reason for her eviction. The weekly live task was dropped; housemates still competed in a "Saturday Challenge" though, but only highlights were shown. The week after Seddiki's eviction, Ahmed Aghil was evicted. The following week the flamboyant, aggressive Victor Ebuwa was evicted.

The following week Michelle Bass was evicted. The series was notable for her romance with Stuart Wilson. It is widely believed that they were the first couple to have full sex on the main Big Brother UK show (this having already taken place on Teen Big Brother in 2003), following two incidents where they made a crude tent and discarded their microphones. However their actions were not visible, and both parties have refused to confirm or deny it. Michelle's self-confessed jealous behaviour gave some viewers the impression that Stuart was an unwilling participant in the affair, but he has stated since that this was not the case. The relationship continued after both had left the house.

Two days before the final day Stuart Wilson received only 7% of the votes to win, the lowest amount of the contestants in the house, and so was evicted. All five remaining housemates were enjoying a party for winning a mini task when Stuart was called into the diary room. He was then told he was to leave immediately, without saying goodbye to the remaining housemates. He was very enthusiastic and well received on leaving the Big Brother house.

Nadia, as expected by all the bookmakers (she was favourite for six weeks) won Big Brother (UK) 2004 with 74% of the vote. She was greeted by an adoring crowd who chanted her name.

BB5 was also notable for the introduction by two of the housemates of the 'eviction pose', which led to several evictees doing poses during Big Brother 6. First Victor struck a 'cool' pose in keeping with his house 'gangsta' persona, leaning against the wall sideways on to the waiting audience. Later Dan (who could possibly have seen Victor before the inner doors closed) stood, head bowed, arms out, before lifting his head.

Final vote breakdown:
#Nadia: 3,863,696
#Jason: 1,335,246
#Dan: 685,995
#Shell: 347,051
Total number of votes in the final week: 6.3 million

Housemates

Ahmed Aghil

Ahmed Aghil fled to Britain from Somalia during the early 1990s, and is now a successful property developer. He gained a reputation for his eccentricity and his inexplicable outbursts of violence while in the house. He always remained least favourite to win, with odds ranging from 33/1 to 50/1.

Ahmed usually spent time alone in the garden, or asleep. He was fairly sedate, in sharp contrast to most of the house, meaning that he did not bond with anyone in the house much, and indeed was fairly irritated by many of the housemates. Those he did bond with were evicted one by one: Kitten Pinder for rule-breaking, and Becki Seddiki after a public vote.

After a few weeks of participation in the programme, Ahmed began to have spontaneous violent outbursts, in which he threw plates around, chopped the head of a papier-mâché statue off with a spade and screamed out loud (the first two were in response to the playing into the house of a crying baby, the first time to try to wake the housemates up, the second time to try to get them to talk after they refused to speak for a day in protest at failing a task. He explained his behaviour later on by stating that as a father, he found the sound of a crying baby extremely disturbing). It eventually became clear that he was under enormous psychological pressure in the house, and that he was becoming increasingly deranged-he recognised this himself, but refused to leave the house of his own accord, since he harboured a dream of having an eviction night and interview like all other evictees (he referred to this as "his night"). Eventually, it got to the point where he was asking the other housemates to nominate him for eviction. Even when he did so, he was not evicted.

He became extremely unpopular in the house, with the public hating him after an incident in the house during a weekly "Big Brother Boot Camp" task, in which he was assigned the role of a private (along with 5 other housemates) while two others were assigned the role of sergeant. He refused to do several activities as required by the task, came to blows with (more popular) sergeant Michelle and eventually tried to instigate a military coup. Despite this, the group passed the task: however, in accordance with the rules of the task, the privates were immediately up for eviction. He was evicted with 56% of the vote. In his post-eviction interview, he remarked that he did not expect to remain in the house past the third week.

Becki Seddiki

Becki Seddiki is a singer-songwriter and musician from London, and has Moroccan blood. Her choice of Michelle as recipient of her 'Judas kiss' was hugely unpopular with viewers and resulted in her being evicted at the earliest opportunity.

Jason Cowan

One half of the jungle cats and runner up. Cowan became bored and moody halfway through the show. Considered a bully because of his big muscular build and aggressive traits, he was argumentative. Cowan's presence at the end brought a balance to the house after all the villains had left and only friends or people that sat on the fence were left. He was born on November 1 1973, in Hamilton, Lanarkshire. He was in Five's recent show Commando VIP, in which he and five other celebrities had to complete SAS-style tasks.

Kathryn "Kitten" Pinder

Kathryn ("Kat", or "Kitten") Pinder (born October 13, 1979) entered the house on May 28, 2004 and was evicted one week later on June 4 after continuously breaking house rules and receiving three formal warnings. After her eviction, Kitten occasionally appeared on the parallel show Big Brother's Little Brother, also on Channel 4.

Kitten is currently living with her lesbian lover in Brighton, and describes herself as an anarchist, heavily involved in political activism and opposition to war, the class society and capitalism. Before becoming an anarchist, she used to eb a member/supporter of the Alliance for Workers Liberty. She also claimed to be a £15.00-a-suke child prostitute in London at the age of 13, although her father denied this in the press, stating that she was in boarding school in Staffordshire at the time.

On entering the Big Brother house, Kitten refused to enter until she had seen her girlfriend and made obscene gestures to the crowd and the media. This action led her to be the first housemate to be booed on entry to the house. Her behaviour did not improve once in the house as she refused to obey the rules of Big Brother, leading to three official warnings.

In an effort to get Kitten to toe the line, Big Brother warned the housemates that they would evict any housemate without warning if Kitten continued to break the rules. However Kitten again broke the rules by dubbing anti-war slogans on the wall of the house. On the second week, live on Channel 4, Kitten was finally evicted from the house, initially refusing to leave. She was eventually removed from the house after Big Brother began reducing the £100,000 prize fund by £1,000 for every 10 seconds she stayed in the house. On leaving Kitten shouted at the media against the Queen and the Aristocracy.

Some days later she appeared in court regarding her non-payment of parking fines amounting to £225. She blamed it on Tony Blair's education policy, saying she could not pay the fines because of student debts.

Marco Sabba

Marco Jaye Sabba was a law student from Kingston University, and was particularly friendly with Nadia Almada and Michelle Bass, who called themselves the 'lipgloss bitches', but were dubbed Marco's harem by Victor. Also, he infamously tripped his own mother by sliding along a slippery stage when he emerged from the Big Brother house. Marco has also reappeared on British Television since leaving the Big Brother house. He, along with fellow housemate Emma, provided a commentary of Celebrity Big Brother on Richard and Judy.

Michelle Bass

Michelle Bass (born February 2, 1981 in Newcastle) was a member of the 'Lipgloss Bitches', also referred to as 'The Harem', along with Marco Sabba, Emma Greenwood and Nadia Almada. She was best known for her relationship in the house with Stuart Wilson, and also the spell in the bedsit with Emma Greenwood.

After Big Brother, Michelle enjoyed a relationship with Stuart Wilson. Still pursuing a glamour modelling career, Michelle had breast implants and became the presenter of a soft porn channel.

Stuart Wilson

Stuart Wilson was initially a member of the jungle cats, although when things got serious with Michelle, he was neither here nor there. He was best known in the house for his relationship with Michelle and for his constant need to dress up and child-like personality. Michelle is now presenting television x with her BB friend Emma Greenwood

Michelle and Stuart enjoyed a year long relationship, in which they attended showbiz parties and covered many articles in glossy magazines. Soon after the sixth series of Big Brother started, it was reaveled these two had split up.

Vanessa Nimmo

Vanessa Nimmo (born 12 August 1977) is a former double South African archery champion. She was born in Cape Town but moved to the UK in 1994. Since being on Big Brother, she has been dating Ben Fogle. During "Fight Night", it took half of the housemates to hold Nadia back after Vanessa had supposedly slapped her. Like Michelle Bass, Vanessa also had breast implants which prompted her to do raunchy photoshoots with fellow housemate Shell Jubin including a September 2005 DVD release "Shell and Vanessa laid bare" in which she happily was photographed topless for the first time.

Shell Jubin

Soon after the series ended she appeared alongside Vanessa appearing in raunchy photoshoots, she has since returned to higher education studying for a masters degree in Art History. In September 2005 Shell and Vanessa released an 18-rated DVD named "Shell and Vanessa laid bare".

Victor Ebuwa

Victor Ebuwa (born January 17, 1981) was the co-Leader of the 'Jungle Cats', styling himself as 'Slick (Vic)' in the house, and formed a close partnership with Jason Cowan, and also with Ahmed Aghil. He was known for his memorable one-liners and rap-style speech, for speaking his mind and having a game plan. He is also probably the first housemate ever to openly discuss his plan in the Diary Room in the house.

On day 57 he was evicted following an argument with fellow housemate Shell Jubin, after which a deranged fan of Victor's sent death threats to Shell's parents house. Previous to this argument Victor was second favourite to win the show.

Many TV critics, including Ally Ross (The Sun TV Critic), have credited Victor for saving the Big Brother UK franchise, thanks to stirring controversy and his 'straight talking' attitude towards housemates. The previous year's show was slammed by critics for being dull, leading to record low viewing figures and a subsequent drop in eviction votes. Viewing figures increased this year to an average of 7 million every night.

Since leaving the house, Victor has appeared on Celebrity Poker Club.

See also

*Big Brother 5 nominations table

External link

*Becki Seddiki's web site devoted to her music


Category:Channel 4 television programmes
Category:Big Brother (UK)

The Wikipedia article is licensed under http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html and uses material from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Sabba. A preview of this article is available at http://www.blinkbits.com/en_wikifeeds/Marco_Sabba.