[Red Moon]

`Fragile' Barrymore tipped to win Big Brother

7 January 2006

MICHAEL Barrymore is favourite to win Celebrity Big Brother despite a day of bizarre behaviour.

He attempted to deface a portrait of the Queen by poking her eyes out with a lemon squeezer - earning him a dressing down by show bosses.

Barrymore's appearance on the show marks his TV comeback four years after partygoer Stuart Lubbock was found dead in the star's pool.

In a discussion about his troubled life, he said: "If you come through those moments when you lose you and you get you back, you're actually the better person for it and your work improves because of it. That's providing you come through it."

Bookmakers installed him as 3/1 favourite to win the Channel 4 show after the opening night crowd greeted him with cheers.

Ladbrokes spokesman David Williams said: "We feared he might be damaged goods but the phones started ringing as soon as the show was over."

But Barrymore's fragile mental state became evident in the early hours.

After getting up because the other housemates complained about his snoring, he cut a sorry figure wandering the house alone.

Barrymore has found a fan in Respect MP George Galloway.

"You're a funny man, Michael, you'll be back. And you'll be back big," Galloway told him.

Meanwhile, Galloway and singer Preston have already rumbled fake celebrity Chantelle.

The Essex girl is trying to convince the other housemates she is a pop star from the pretend band Kandyfloss.

But she slipped up when telling the others about her supposed chart career.

Galloway told Preston: "She had one hit, it got to number 47."

"She told me 58," Preston said. "You don't think she's a red herring? I've never heard of her."

Galloway's surprise appearance in the Big Brother house has not gone down too well with his constituents. A group calling themselves the United Residents of Bethnal Green and Bow have set up a website headed: "Contestant George Galloway MP - Why Isn't He At Work?"

But fellow housemate Rula Lenska had a different view, revealing in the diary room that she had a soft spot for him.

Source: Manchester Evening News