Nick Leeson has left the
Celebrity Big Brother house in fourth place.
Leaving the house to enormous cheers from the waiting crowd, Nick was greeted by
Emma Willis who gave him a big hug. ‘I was astonished, delighted and astonished,’ he said of his fourth place victory. ’23 years ago or however long it was I did something really bad and I’ve been trying to rebuild my reputation,’ he said, ‘I faced a lot of adversity and hoping I’ve changed it around.’
Nick spent time in a Singapore prison for rogue trading in the 1990s.
The English banker became infamous in the mid-90s for losing his employer, Barings Bank, hundreds of millions of pounds and being a large part of their ultimate collapse. He told Emma that his time in the CBB house was harder than prison, suggesting that the tension is ‘heightened’ in the house. Later, speaking to Emma, Nick shed a few tears as they spoke of how he commanded respect in the house, and spoke up when needed but never caused further fights.
‘I don’t speak often but when I speak I mean it, and I don’t mince my words and there were a couple of things that went on – I am sure you could have shown some other clips – where I was a bit more aggressive in my condemnation, and there were some things clearly wrong and they troubled friends of mine in the house,’ said Nick. ‘It was important,’ he continued before pausing to choke back his own emotions as the audience cheered.
‘Of all the housemates I expected to get emotional and cry tonight, you were not one of them,’ said Emma before thanking Nick for being emotional: ‘You know who you are, you’re very confident, have that emotion’.
Earlier in the night, Gabby Allen left the show in sixth place; Sally Morgan pipped her into fifth place. The current season of Celebrity Big Brother has been rife with controversy after Roxanne Pallett left the show after accusing Ryan Thomas of physical assault.
Roxanne had claimed that Ryan had punched her numerous times to cause her pain, when in reality Ryan had approached her and playfully sparred with her.
However, that didn’t stop Roxanne initially telling her other housemates that she had been hit by Ryan, leaving the house divided over who to believe while Ryan was forced to vehemently defend himself. The housemates were left torn as they believed Roxanne’s accusations before Big Brother told Dan Osborne to remember that Ryan would have been removed from the house if he had done anything untoward to Roxy, and Ryan was slowly vindicated.