Big Brother's Chantelle Houghton reveals fortune she made off the show after entering with just 80p

Chantelle Houghton is one of the most memorable contestants to have ever appeared on Celebrity Big Brother – and she is the only one to have ever not been a celebrity before appearing on the show.

Celebrity Big Brother may still produce some viral moments, most notably with the recent JoJo Siwa season, but it may never again have the cultural relevancy it did in the 00s.

Houghton joined the 2006 season of the TV show, telling the other housemates that she was the lead singer of the band ‘Kandy Floss’. The only problem was that no band existed and she was making it all up, sent in by producers to convince her fellow housemates that she was a celeb.

She became a pretty well-known name off the back of it and, in a new interview with Paul C Brunson on his podcast We Need to Talk, she has revealed that she only had 80p when she went into the house and made a small fortune in the six months after she left.

Houghton kept a diary of her appearances and what they paid after Celebrity Big Brother, and made a huge sum in six months

Houghton ended up winning the celebrity show and, whilst it doesn’t have any prize money, proceeded to make the absolute most of her fame.

She told Brunson: “I was working all the time like every single day and I knew that I had to maximize it. I knew that I couldn't turn down work because I also knew that this wasn't going to last forever.

“I never thought, oh this is it for the rest of my life, you know.”

Chantelle Houghton won the series despite being the only non-celeb on the show (Andy Butterton/WireImage)

Despite entering the house with just 80p in her account however, within six months she was left with £1,000,000. She explained: “I used to write in my diary the job that I was doing and um how much I was getting for it.

“And I remember I used to count it and count it and I just couldn't wait until it got to the 1 million and it was pretty much bang on six months that I got to one million pounds.”

This included being paid £250,000 for her first interview out of the Big Brother house, which she said looking back she ‘couldn’t believe’.

The Celebrity Big Brother star said that finding fame so quickly was difficult

Houghton spoke out about becoming famous so quickly (YouTube/We Need To Talk)

She went on, explaining to Brunson: “[Fame] made me not know my identity even more so because I didn't know who I was before and I definitely didn't know who I was then.

"One minute I'm living in this small village and then next thing I'm in the Queen Mother's house... shaking Prince Charles's hand.

"I was so vulnerable... being so new to the industry as well, but also being alone."

"I kind of always was made to feel that they were like... my life was in their hands and they could keep making me or they could break me."

She also claimed to have lost several friends to fame, one of the major side effects of becoming well known so quickly.