Rylan Clark-Neal says Big Brother paycheque felt like “I’d won the lottery”

"It's quite, quite shocking sometimes..."

Rylan Clark-Neal has spoken about his fee for Celebrity Big Brother for the first time, saying that he felt like he had "won the lottery." The presenter, who found fame on The X Factor in 2012, entered the Big Brother house one year later, eventually going onto win the series. He told Louis Theroux's Grounded podcast that he had never spoken publicly about what he was paid for the gig. "I got £100,000 to be in Big Brother. So to me, I'd won the lottery," he said. "I've never said that. I think that is the first time I've ever said how much I got paid to go on Big Brother. "But when you realise how much money there is in television and what other people get paid to do the same experience or less than you, it's quite, quite shocking sometimes. "I've known very big payments for people to go into that house. I mean some people have been paid half a million pounds and got evicted first, put it that way." The Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two host said that despite the fame he has enjoyed since his time on Big Brother, he also experienced a lot of hate, particularly during his time on The X Factor.

"I was hated," he said. "There was two people on the front pages of the papers at the time that I was on X Factor. It was me and Jimmy Savile, and six out of seven days I'd get worse press than him. Like, that says something.

"They were just saying I don't deserve [X Factor], I'm robbing people of places, which is fine… The only reason I found it difficult - I'd just sit there and think about my mum.

"I told her: don't read nothing, don't look at anything, just let me do what I do, I know what I'm doing, let me just do it. Trust me, trust me it's gonna be difficult but just let me do it."

You can listen to Rylan's full interview on Grounded below. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2l9sWyuMF4C9j9u3QhZCTk?si=qLQxC3hJQQ6va6Htsf6gCA