BB1 villain Nasty Nick Bateman hit out at the BB producers' obsession with dull beauties, show-offs and characters who "suffer from charisma bypasses".

He said: "When they start putting in part-time models, you know it's a ploy to pull the big audience. The format works with normal people - not blind people, not show-offs, not frustrated actors or models, dull people or even vulgarians."

A prime example of this is Stephanie from BB9, an almost famous Girls Aloud reject whose popularity proved absent after being evicted in week one - despite being easy on the eye.