According to today's Daily Star, Jonny is depressed, and Kate is worried about him. He had to go back to work on Wednesday and the Durham and Darlington Fire Service is worried about him, because he hasn't been in touch.

They also mention that he did not go to the wrap party.

Personally I think that they have used a few incidents and the fact that Jonny admitted to feeling "a bit flat" a few days ago to make a big deal out of nothing, but I would be interested to know if anyone knows anything from a more reliable source than the Star!

[Janette]

I agree with you Oldgit, I'm sure anyone who had spent that amount of time locked away with no contact from family or friends would have to take some time away from the limelight to readjust to being in the real world again!

I'm sure Jonny is fine, and he's just struggling a bit with his new found fame!

[susieq]

It must be really difficult to adjust to life in the 'normal' world and I'm sure Jonny is getting away from it all - hopefully with Joanne - just to readjust to his new situation.

With a bit of luck he's gone somewhere sunny and is just chilling out and having a good time. He'll be in contact with people when he's got his head sorted out and he's good and ready.

He DID get a bit low in the house but I'm sure a few weeks break will do him the world of good.

[LEE]

Here's a transcript of an interview with Jonny in this weeks 'Now' magazine. He doesn't exactly come over as depressed, but he does say he's a bit fed up that all the other finalists have quite a few lucrative offers and that he hasn't.

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Being the nice guy didn’t help me

He’s the nations favourite fireman, but Jonny Regan says being too nice probably stopped him winning Big Brother or getting any lucrative post-show deals.

He was the Geordie joker of the house – the one you could rely on for a laugh – and he received 2.2 million votes from viewers who judged him their favourite housemate. But Big Brother runner-up Jonny Regan is finding that being the funny, nice guy doesn’t always pay off.

While his fellow finalists are all set to make millions – Jade has already earned £500,000 in newspaper and magazine deals; Kate’s £70,000 prize cheque is just the tip of the ice-berg after signing a £180,000 magazine deal; and Alex got a reported £80,000 plus a £1 million offer to be the new face of Brylcreem – Jonny’s still waiting for the offers to start rolling in.

‘I’m quite happy to go back to my job as a fireman and sing in my band,’ says Jonny. ‘I don’t want to be classed as a wannabe because I never went into this for the stardom. If there are offers on the table, I’d be stupid to turn them down, but because I wasn’t zany enough or more eccentric in the house, I haven’t had a lot.

‘The psychotherapist told me that, out of the four of us, I came across as a nice, solid, decent bloke,’ he says. ‘But I was just too nice. The press couldn’t find any gossip on me. There weren’t any skeletons in my closet. Now I’m regretting that. If I’m going to get the least interest, despite coming second, then I wish I’d had something more juicy,’ he jokes.

But fans of Jonny will argue that the 29-year-old firefighter did have plenty of juicy moments in the house and he reveals it wasn’t just Alex, Adele and Kate who played Follow The Van – a kinky sex game involving a plastic, glow-in-the-dark Scooby-Doo van.

‘I played Follow The Van with Kate,’ grins Jonny. ‘She just followed the van with her head and, at one point, I lay on my back on the bed, held it over my head and she tripped over and fell on top of me. Then we just giggled and we just rolled off.

‘Perhaps if I’d been single, I’d have taken things a bit further. Big Brother is grea for single lads. You’re locked in there and the weather starts getting hotter, the lads are all wandering around in their trunks, the lasses are wearing bikinis, you’re sharing bedrooms, you jump in and out of baths together – it’s brilliant fun. But when you’ve got your missus on the outside, it’s incredibly frustrating.

But Jonny’s fiancée, 31-year-old accountant Joanne Llewellyn, had nothing to worry about. The couple have been together for eight years and Jonny says he’d never cheat on her.

‘Kate knows how faithful I am to Joanne and how I feel about her,’ he says. ‘I told Kate that I fancied her. She’s really sexy, but as I started to get to know Kate I realised how crazy she was and how much she liked to have a laugh. This is where the brother-and-sister bond began to form. ‘Kate’s my “geezer bird”. I have more in common with Kate than I do with my friends back home.

‘If I was bored, I’d throw Kate on the floor and tickle her; put a towel over her head and throw her all over the place; or have a game of hide-and-seek. It was tiny, stupid little things and we kept doing them again and again – people might say we were repetitive but it never failed to amuse us. I went back to being a 10-year-old in the house.

‘But Joanne is the one for me. I missed her birthday in the house and I got all the housemates to sing Happy Birthday to her – but Channel 4 didn’t show that.’

He admits it was tough going without sex for nine weeks. ‘It got harder and harder,’ he says. ‘All the lads were joking that we were leaving the house with fully loaded weapons. I told PJ some poor girl is going to have her back put out when he gets out. But it would be like Tommy Two-Strokes – all over in seconds.’

PJ is one of the few people Jonny hopes to keep in touch with. He has sorted out his differences with Alex and admits to being very fond of Jade. But if there’s one person he could happily never see again, it’s Adele.

Uncharacteristically for Jonny, he says: ‘She’s a bitch. I thought she was a really nice, genuine girl in the house, but apparently she said some really nasty things behind my back. But let’s leave it in the house – what happened, happened.’

It’s the first time Jonny has spoken so strongly against any of the housemates, but he says there’s a good reason why he has bitten his tongue for so long. ‘I went into the house a paranoid wreck,’ he says. ‘People had told me: “Don’t swear, don’t lose your rag,” and my fire chief told me I could lose my job if I showed up the fire brigaid. So I really curbed my temper and tried to stop getting any full frontals on camera.

‘Looking back, maybe I should’ve flown off the handle every time I felt like it. Being the nice guy didn’t do me any favours. The first thing that got my goat was the “Weegate” scandal with Alex. I thought: “I’m a 29-year-old and I’m not going to have some 23-year-old boy tell me how to act.” But Sandy annoyed me the most. When he told me he didn’t like me, I shouldn’t have held back. But I was worrying too much.’

Now his only worry is how Big Brother will affect his life. There’s talk that he might front a fire safety campaign and a possible promotion with Woodpecker Cider, but Jonny hopes that it will create more demand for his band Reagan.

‘It’s like a cabaret show, we don’t stand there playing instruments, we have our own light show and dance routines. So far, we’ve played to audiences of 500, but if we can go to venues that seat 1,000 - that would be fantastic’.

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[Kaz]

Thanks, LEE.

There's also an article by Jonny in today's Sunday Mail:

I'M NOT LORD LUCAN SAYS JONNY
Star fireman wilts under the spotlight

BIG BROTHER runner-up Jonny Regan yesterday denied he was cracking up after his fire brigade mates dubbed him Lord Lucan for going AWOL.

His close pal, BB3 winner Kate, said she feared Jonny, 29, was struggling to cope with the fame.

A spokesman for Durham and Darlington Fire Brigade confirmed Jonny missed his return to work on Wednesday and added: "He's becoming our very own Lord Lucan."

Yesterday Jonny emerged to say: "It's all crazy. I'm so busy, but I know I am going to have to go back to work at some point."

Fears over Jonny's state of mind were sparked when he failed to turn up for the Big Brother wrap party at London's CC Club last Monday night. He also told millions of E4 viewers last week: "I'm feeling really down in the dumps at the moment and I feel really flat. I'm not sure why but I suppose it's because everything's been so high since last Friday and now it's back to normal."

Big Brother winner Kate is so worried about him she frequently calls him on his mobile phone - eight times a day. Jonny is also being monitored by the Big Brother psychotherapist more closely than any of the other housemates.

Kate, 22, said: "I'm really worried about him because he is a bit depressed but I've told him to call me whenever he feels he needs to talk."

But yesterday Jonny said he was simply taking time out from the fire station. He also said he would consider ditching his job at Peterlee Fire Station if the right entertainment deal came up. Two showbusiness agents want to sign him and a recording contract could be in the pipeline.

Jonny, of Trimdon, County Durham, said: "If something comes up, I'm confident I'll go for it. I would be stupid to say I want to be a fireman forever. Other housemates on past shows have done little things and then gone back to their old life."

His biggest fan remains his girlfriend Joanne Llewellyn. Jonny said: "She has been absolutely fantastic. She has been really supportive."

He will now meet his fire chief to find out when his unpaid leave will come to an end.

[LEE]

In this ARTICLE FROM THE PEOPLE ONLINE Jonny denies being depressed saying he has never been so happy.

He also says that his bosses have suggested that he takes 6 months off to help get back to normal before returning to fire fighting.

[Amy]

It must be mad for Jonny at the moment but i think he will be ok He just needs to calm down after nine weeks of fun and games

[kaphc]

I am sure that (yet again!) the tabloids are exaggerating massively about how Jonny is feeling.



But I do hope he's OK. I can't imagine what it must be like for him to be back in the outside world now, but I guess it's pretty weird. He looks like he will have strong support from Joanne and his family which is good.



As for going back to work on Wednesday, I am sure that was far too soon anyway! I hope he has a nice holiday somewhere and relaxes a bit!

It was good to read in today's People that Jonny is fine, and that he has been given 6 months off. It wouldn't be right that a lad like Jonny who entertained us most of the time he was in the house, ends up in a bad way as a result.