Leave Ekin-Su alone: The backlash over her CBB behaviour has been taken too far

Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu was meant to be on Lorraine this morning. “I thought she would be here but alas, no. I don’t know what’s happened. We’re trying to find out,” Lorraine said on her GMB promo slot. Ekin-Su no showing on Lorraine is something that I think is worrying, but not something I’m surprised about. The Love Island winner experienced a pretty steep fall from grace after her time in the Celebrity Big Brother house – and following the messy Late and Live after show things went from bad to worse. I have echoed sentiments that clearly Ekin-Su did not behave in the best way from what we saw on Celebrity Big Brother, but the backlash has been notably extreme online. To an uncomfortable degree.

I suppose it needs to be said that I have publicly been a huge fan of Ekin-Su since Love Island. She is arguably my favourite ever Love Islander – not that it takes much to get that title when most of the cast of that show are frightfully dull influencer girlies and fellas who are overly partial to a cheeky Nando’s. The camp, dramatic and drama fuelled Ekin-Su stood out for all the right reasons. When she was announced for Celebrity Big Brother (after some other high profile reality TV appearances since her villa victory, including Dancing on Ice and The Traitors US), I was publicly declaring how excited I was that people who love Big Brother but would never really be arsed about watching Love Island were finally going to get to see how iconic she was.

She got off to a good start. When she asked Gary Goldsmith, the estranged uncle of the Princess of Wales, “where’s Kate?” extremely bluntly in the wake of the Katespiracy era, social media erupted. It was a great moment and the kind of blunt Ekin-Su fun she’s known for. But after sort of siding with the older people in the house and constantly denouncing Love Island, Ekin came across as a prude at best and derogatory at worst when talking about people who do Only Fans, commenting that she’s never make money “the wrong way”.

This annoyed me and the internet, of course. Things got worse with Marisha-gate last week, as Ekin flipped her lid over the nomination and fell out with Marisha on a day that should have been great for the latter, who received the news she’d been nominated for an Olivier but spent the end of the day in tears over upsetting Ekin. Something that felt like an extreme reaction when Ekin had nommed Louis Walsh who she was very close to in the house, when seemingly annoyed at Marisha for doing something similar towards her.

All of these things are reasons to be wound up with someone and to want them evicted from a game like Big Brother. But where things have gotten weird is in the sheer delight people are going to in celebrating the “downfall” of Ekin-Su. Declaring her career being over, but relishing in it. I have commented and called her out on her behaviour too.

On Friday, I was in the audience of Celebrity Big Brother Late and Live and was witness to the awkward tension in the room as guest panelist Layton Williams and hosts Will Best and AJ Odudu called out Ekin-Su, who was “blaming it on the edit” despite having not yet seen the edit of the show beyond her best bits. Layton, Will and AJ all made valid points, but where I found things more uncomfortable is how overwhelming the situation must have been – and there’s a serious lack of compassion. That being said, people who are trying to cancel Layton or get Will and AJ fired for their part in it are bizarre to me – nothing particularly bad came from them even if it must have been tough to hear for Ekin.

The backlash resulted in Ekin-Su left the house to boos, looking like she had no clue why she got said boos. Within a whirlwind few minutes she was being interviewed and pressed on details from her time in the house with an audience not on her side, guests calling her out and a rather stressed mother speaking up and accusing the show of editing down bits to suit a narrative. It would be a lot for anyone, and it’s worth noting that for none of Ekin-Su’s previous TV appearances have had the live audienceness of a Big Brother eviction night, and all the pants that comes with it.

Whilst I don’t excuse Ekin-Su for things she said in the house or her behaviours, I do think it is beyond ridiculous that tweets like the above are sitting on nearly three and a half thousand likes when they compare her time in the house to that of Jade Goody, whose racist comments to Shilpa Shetty saw an international scandal and people in India burning effigies of her in the street and to Roxanne Pallett, who made out like Ryan Thomas had intentionally punched her to harm her and faced enormous and deserved backlash for it. Imagine being Ekin-Su and coming out of the house to that. It is honestly beyond belief.

When you see the mob mentality towards her online after this weekend, I do not blame Ekin-Su for not going on Lorraine this morning. There’s a distinct lack of compassion here. Reality TV often has villains, but the carry on here feels insidious. I condemn the comments she made about Only Fans and her behaviour towards Marisha, but I hope she’s taking some time to look after herself whilst the wolves online stay whipped up in frenzy.

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