Why everyone is talking about Roxanne Pallett

Big Brother has had its fair share of pantomime villains since the early days of Nasty Nick, but one of its latest contestants - Roxanne Pallett - threatened to rival them all.

The actor, who won acclaim for her depiction of domestic violence victim Jo Sugden on Emmerdale, walked into the Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) house to cheers on 16 August, but later left in tears after overblowing a playfight with fellow housemate Ryan Thomas.

Last night she walked out of another reality TV show: Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls. Here’s what happened.

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What happened on CBB?

Fellow CBB contestant Ryan Thomas, who played Jason Grimshaw on ITV’s Coronation Street, appeared to give Pallett a playful boxing jab in an episode shown on 30 August.

But she later claimed that he had “punched” her “like a boxer would punch a bag”, and accused Thomas of being a “woman beater”. Pallett asked producers to remove him from the house, resulting in Thomas being given a formal warning, despite denying that he had hurt her.

More than 11,000 viewers complained to Ofcom over the episode - but most criticised Pallett’s reaction to the incident, reports The Sun.

She dodged eviction on the Friday night but chants of “Get Roxy out” could be heard from the crowds outside, prompting her to break down in tears in the diary room.

By the following morning, she had left the house, forfeiting her fee.

Twenty of her former Emmerdale co-stars took to Twitter to voice their support for Thomas, with some claiming that Pallett had undermined women who actually suffer abuse and others accusing her of telling lies before.

What was her response?

On Monday 3 September, Pallett was in tears again during a television grilling from CBB host Emma Willis, who said she could have “ruined” Thomas with her allegations.

“I got it wrong. I’m human. I made a massive, massive, horrible mistake,” she said, describing herself as “the most hated girl in Britain”.

Pallett put her reaction down to being over sensitive and said she realised that she needs to work on this “character flaw”.

“Seeing the footage of Ryan in the diary room all distressed… I agree fully and understand with every single person’s reaction and perception,” she said.

”I would have been the same, if I was at home watching it.

“I believed my own story. I felt genuinely disturbed that he had invaded my personal space. I was wrong, massively wrong.”

So what happened this week?

Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls returned to Channel 4 last night, with Pallett among the line-up. The series was filmed before Pallett entered the Big Brother house, but she didn’t last very long in the wilderness.

In the opening episode, she got trapped in a fishing net, thought she had trench foot and then woke the camp at 2.30am crying, claiming that the smell from the bonfire had given her flashbacks of a house fire she was in when she was younger.

“It's the smoke that nearly killed my family in a house fire when I was 16. It’s taking me back to that time. It feels like it’s happening again. I was clinging onto Martin Kemp. I couldn't breathe,” she said.

She told the safety team she was “struggling” with her thoughts and asked them to come and get her off the island.