Is there a curse on Big Brother?

Casual sex, domestic violence, divorce, mental breakdown: all standard fare for today's TV soap operas. But whilst Eastenders and Coronation Street enjoy the benefit of a script, Big Brother has covered all these areas without a single rehearsal!

Femail.co.uk traces the short and brutal history of the nation's favourite reality TV show ...

  • Just one week into the US version of Big Brother 2, and 26-year-old bartender, Justin, is expelled for holding a knife to fellow contestant Krista¿s throat.

  • Sinisa Savija, the first contestant to be expelled from Swedish reality TV show, 'Expedition Robinson', threw himself under a train before the show had even aired.

    His wife Savija told journalists: 'He was a happy, stable person when he went away. When he came back he told me: "They're going to cut the good things I did and make me look like a fool, only to show I was the worst."'

  • Guards used tear gas to repel protesters from outside a French TV studio. They were upset at the apparently mindless nature of the show.

  • Despite the "PJ BJ" incident between contestants Jade Goody and PJ last summer, so far the British version has been relatively sex-free.

    Peter Bazalgatte, the creative director of Big Brother, said: "There was non-stop sex in the Spanish show, sex three of four times in the German version and that famous sex scene in the Dutch version - so we are unique in having none."

  • But although British contestants have yet to go the whole hog, appearing on the show is still a life-changing experience - and not always to the better.

    Nick Bateman - the bad boy of the first Big Brother show - has since complained he can't find a woman because of his dastardly image.

    Since leaving the house, Bateman has earned good money playing on his evil image (he was caught cheating on the show), but his reputation has put him out of favour with the ladies.

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