[Jake.]

Drew & Shaun:

Originally Posted by Shaun

The Ballad of Shaunny Dee



Appearing in the Channel 4 series 'TiBBenefits Street' changed Shaunny Dee's live forever, but looking back she wasn't sure if it was for better or for worse. The author of this story didn't watch any of the documentary series - but presumes that it portrayed the inhabitants of this particular street (probably not actually called Benefits Street, what kind of misinformation?) in a bit of a negative light. We'll use that as the motivation for this story, OK?

Laying on a rubber dinghy in the middle of her swimming pool, Shaunny Dee cast her mind back over the past year and smiled. Hers was a true rags to riches story, and whilst she missed her caravan park and its strong community presence, she couldn't deny that the wealth and the support she'd received was an improvement. She'd still get the occasional death threat in the post, or sent some nasty messages over Twitter, but that was all very easy to ignore when she could book herself in for a panel show appearance or a club opening.

It all went down like this.

--------------

She got the call offering her to appear in Celebrity Coach Trip mid-July. TiBBenefits Street had finished airing 5 months ago, and the fallout was just beginning to dwindle. Shaunny had seen the articles in her defence, and they touched her - she was portrayed as a caring mother and a grafter, if not in the sense that would please the Daily Mail. She'd been told that the famous boxer Lukeb Harrison would also be appearing, as would Caitlin Goodger from TOWIE. Neither of these names fazed her - she was sure they'd be perfectly nice - but Shaunny Dee worried that the show would just further enhance her reputation as a desperate, workshy freeloader. After much persuasion from her family, and a hefty £34 paycheck, however, she put pen to paper.

Flash forward a few uneventful weeks and she faced launch night. Waiting backstage, she could hear the host Jake Willis, Britain's first transgender TV presenter, bellowing her catchphrases and warming the crowd.

Spoiler:

All of a sudden, Shaunny was introduced and pulled to the side by Willis.

"We've got a secret mission for you," she slurred, clearly drunk and her breath smelling of lemons, "you're going to be spending your first twenty four hours in the house pretending to be someone else - the Duchess of Dawlish - and to pass this mission you must successfully trick the three American housemates at the end into believing that story."

Dee smiled and nodded, not sure what to make of it all and half of it going over her head entirely, when she was given an unexpectedly violent shove by Jake and told to enter the house. As she ascended the stairs she felt dizzy - probably shouldn't have smoked that joint with me daughter Raph, she thought - and for a brief moment she considered turning on her cuban heels and running home. Something held her back and forced her into the house, though - was it the money? Or the knowledge that she couldn't run without looking like a lava lamp? It was a mixture of both. The doors opened and Shaunny caught a glimpse of the living area before a rather fine gentleman working as a runner grabbed her by the arm and showed her the way to a task room, where she would be made up.

An hour or two passed whilst she was primped and preened, and the end result was a mixture of Miss Trunchbull and Mrs. Doubtfire. She hated it. She cried a little in the mirror, wanting to go back to her Muppets pyjamas and polka-dot sunglasses, but before she could complain she was told to enter the house for real.

Descending those infamous stairs, her eyes fell upon some recognisable faces (and faeces tbh). She was a little bit starstruck to see Drew Busey, the star of '(I Want Your) Lethal Weapon (Inside Me)', and a short little homosexual was swanning around the room necking bottles of Hooch and cackling. She felt she would like him. A few introductions later - "I'm Claudia Lynch, I was in B*Gothed"... why the **** should I care, Shaunny thought - Dee found herself talking to Drew, Lucas Jordan and a rather plastic-faced woman who called herself Frenchy Rose.

"I am the Duchess of Dawlish," she shook their hands, hoping not to act too common, whilst the other housemates in the know looked on and smirked. She glared at that Jack boy from TiBBlebox who kept trying to distract her.
"You iz une douchess?" Frenchy Rose McGowan cooed and squealed, breaking into a little curtsey, whilst the clearly-drunk Lucas Jordan - who Dee sort-of recognised from some sitcom she might've watched on a stolen cable - gasped and began asking a ton of questions.
"Do I call you ma'am or lady, ma'am?" Lucas' accent was so exotic to Shaunny, and she desperately faught off mimicking it.
"I don't really mind, darling," she explained, hoping to make the task a bit easier for herself.
"So you're a duchess? Do you know what DUCHESS stands for?" Drew interrupted, a bit of a crazy glare in his eye, "it stands for Daniel_ and Udanax Couldn't Handle Eviction So Soon".
Dee smiled and nodded again, not having a ****ing scooby what that meant, before she made her way around the room for her fake introductions.

--------------

The rest of the night passed without event, although she was sure that that Jonnie Maloney fella (or girl) kept throwing resentful glares towards her and just about everyone else. Jake told the group that she had passed her task and revealed her true identity to the Americans.
"YOU'RE A LIAR - YOU'RE A FUCKING LIAR," Lucas screeched and stormed off to the bedroom - not before falling over a strewn bottle of Budweiser. Drew and Frenchy Rose didn't quite seem to understand either way, however, so Shaunny breathed a sigh of relief.

The housemates could now relax and get to know each other, and those first few nights were relatively pleasant until the louder characters made themselves known. Shaunny Dee was aghast to discover, one night, that the house supply of spaghetti had been thrown on the store-room floor. She couldn't believe her eyes, and whilst she hoisted up her ill-fitting nightgown, she immediately went on the warpath.
"WHO MADE THIS FUCKIN' MESS?" she slammed the bedroom door, startling a poor Caitlin Goodger. She could see that the plastic slut in the corner was acting suspicious and dancing to a Fiona Apple song she was listening to on a smuggled-in iPod. Dee yanked it from her ears and Rose screamed, slapping Dee in the face with a hairbrush. Before Shaunny could retaliate, Lucas Jordan stormed into the room crying.
"SHE CUT UP MY TREVOR," he was visibly shaken, "THAT STINKIN' FRENCH SLUT."
With that, chaos ensued, and I don't mean Caitlin. Because she has a boring housemate and probably will be lucky if I mention her again tbh.
The house forcibly separated the three main parties of the feud and - unexpectedly - Liam McIntosh, the fitness-obsessed ex of Kizzy Brook - was evicted because his nudes hadn't garnered nearly enough interest.

Hostility in the house continued to grow, with the Strictly Cum Eating regular Jay Jordan establishing himself as a house villain as he kept pushing Drew Busey over in the shower and laughing at his teeth. He would also have constant spats with LukeB Harrison, the retired boxer who had been greeted by Drew as Luke Ebola, but for some reason this Jordan was kept to the final - the other one, who Shaunny had been sharing a bed with, wa surprisingly evicted second. Shaunny wept as she saw him dancing when the eviction doors opened.



The torment would only continue. As the more obnoxious and irritating characters picked up momentum, the nicer housemates who Shaunny would refer to as her 'babehs' would continue to be evicted. Caitlin Goodger, Dylan Guacamole and StupidHoe Pratt were all removed from the house whilst the awkward Drew Busey remained, unashamedly washing his meat and veg in full view of everyone. Frenchy Rose didn't seem to mind, however, and received a formal warning for repeatedly attempting to grab said genitalia. She was soon evicted, too, much to Shaunny's relief, and her eviction outfit consisted of a thin layer of pink PVC and a pineapple lodged somewhere unfortunate.

Before she knew it, finale night was upon her. Shaunny Dee, Claudia Lynch, Drew Busey, Jack Gilbey, Jay Jordan and LukeB Harrison were all with a chance of winning and Shaunny couldn't quite believe it. She was so sure that she'd be sent packing by the end of the first week, but the cheers from the crowds had given her confidence. Unfortunately, it was not enough, and she finished fifth and only beat the weird goth girl.

--------------

And that's how it all ended. Drew eventually emerged as the champion, much to the bewilderment of the ex-housemates, and after a short week or so of TV appearances Shaunny could feel life returning to normal - but that's when she got the phonecall. She'd been offered a job presenting a new BBC Three quiz show called 'The Slide', and her agent also told her that she'd be part of a team of judges on something called 'The Z Factor'. Cheques continued to reel in, and none of them bounced. It was a strange sensation. But now she was rich and relatively famous, and she was loving it. No more dole queues, no more caravan parks - she'd booked a holiday in a Spanish villa with her friends from home including Black David and her daughter Raphy - her life was finally in order. And that's how the story ends. X