Why Sharon Osbourne's Celebrity Big Brother appearance will be different to the other housemates
Celebrity Big Brother is finally making its return to UK screens in what will be the first edition of the show on ITV.
The 23rd series of the celebrity incarnation of the hit reality show will come to ITV1 and ITVX on Monday, 4 March.
AJ Odudu and Will Best will once again present the show, with it being their first time in charge of presenting CBB.
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Celebrity Big Brother was first on our screens back in 2001 on Channel 4, before moving to Channel 5. It's now been six years since the last season, with a total of 616 episodes broadcast across the 18 years it was originally on our TVs for.
Ahead of the debut of the new season, the line-up has reportedly been leaked, as reported by The Sun.
ITV has since stayed quiet on the line-up brought to audiences by the newspaper. It told LADbible: "Any names are at this point pure speculation and viewers will have to tune in to see who will be entering the Celebrity Big Brother house."
A total of 12 contestants have been signed up for the new season.
The contestants tipped to appear in the series are Strictly Come Dancing's Nikita Kuzmin, Ibiza Weekender star David Potts, Heartstopper's Bradley Riches, Zeze Millz, Marisha Wallace, Coronation Street's Colson Smith, Fern Britton, Lauren Simon, Gary Goldsmith, Ekin-Su Culculoglu, and Levi Roots.
Alongside these will be iconic X Factor judging duo, Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne, with the pair part of the singing show's glory years alongside show-runner Simon Cowell.
But Osbourne's time in the Celebrity Big Brother house will be slightly different to everyone else taking part in the show.
The Sun reported that Osbourne was roped in to the current season due to a request from her old pal Walsh.
The reason why? Walsh reportedly wouldn't take part unless his mate was also going to appear.
It means that Osbourne will take part in the show but reportedly only as a 'special housemate'. She'll be there for a limited period of time and won't be a fully fledged contestant looking to be crowned winner.
A source told the newspaper: "Louis made it clear to Celebrity Big Brother producers that he would only go in the house if his pal Sharon Osbourne was in there too.
"He was in two minds about whether to do the show because he knows it can be really intense and challenging, but he knew he’d have a hoot if Sharon was in there with him.
“He and Sharon haven’t done a TV show together since their glory days on The X Factor, so he was also confident that the public would lap up seeing them reunited.
"The execs were really keen to make it happen too, but they couldn’t afford Sharon’s fee for the whole run so they were worried they would lose them both.
"In the end, they managed to came up with the compromise of booking Sharon as a special guest housemate who will come in during the run for a few days.
"Louis was more than happy with that, and Sharon’s chuffed too as she gets to make a big entrance, cause a bit of havoc and then leave them to it. She and Louis are going to be TV gold together again.”
Topics: Big Brother, Celebrity, Celebrity Big Brother, ITV, Music, TV and Film, X Factor
Tom Earnshaw