As Celebrity Big Brother returns to our screens tonight, it’s hosted by TV duo AJ Odudu and Will Best – but there was one time when AJ was sacked from the show, and never thought she’d return. The TV host was axed after her time presenting Big Brother’s spin-off show Big Brother’s Bit on the Side in 2013 and thought her career had derailed before it had even started.
Aged just 25 at the time, AJ thought she’d made it, but after just six months, she was asked to leave and moved in with her father, sleeping on his sofa bed. She took up a job in a call centre as well as in retail after her contract wasn’t renewed, and to make her situation even more bleak, she found out her boyfriend was also cheating on her.
Despite the hardship and feeling “crushed”, the young and ambitious presenter was left steaming clothes in a retail shop on Carnaby Street, and ten years later was back, and not only on the show again, but became the face of it. Now 35, AJ, originally from Blackburn, said it was amazing to come back better than ever and feel like she “owns the building”.
Recalling the time she was axed in her twenties, AJ told The Times: “I thought that was it for me. It was going to go series to series, strength to strength, and when it didn’t work out that way.. I was absolutely devastated. I was crushed. It more than stung. I cried for months. I was so, so upset. I felt, like, gosh, what am I going to do?
“It was just a tragic time. My contract didn’t get renewed, my boyfriend was cheating on me and we broke up. I remember steaming clothes at the back of this shop called AQAQ on Carnaby Street. I’m not a shop assistant, I’m a TV presenter. I just do this on the side’.”
After her own mental health struggles when she was ‘let go of,’ AJ is especially mindful that everyone working on the show is looked after.
In 2021, AJ competed on Strictly Come Dancing, solidifying herself as a household name, and now her main focus is on Big Brother, after taking over from Davina McCall, who has given her ‘blessing’.
AJ gushed: “She sent me a two-part video of her — her face, her cats, on her bed, in bed with Davina McCall. Stunning vibes. And she just said she’s absolutely delighted for me!”
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