Ben Jardine and Jermaine Pennant are two of the housemates who have been shown the footage of the incident between Roxanne Pallett and Ryan Thomas after leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house (Picture: Channel 5/WENN)

The drama caused by Roxanne Pallett’s lie that Ryan Thomas had intentionally punched her to cause hurt overshadowed much of the current series of Celebrity Big Brother.

Her claims caused the biggest CBB storm in the last decade.

She’s now been out of the house for over one week after walking when she heard chants of ‘get Roxy out’ on Friday 31 August after Ben Jardine was evicted.

Roxanne had claimed that Ryan had punched her numerous times to cause her pain, when in reality Ryan had approached her and playfully sparred with her.


However, that didn’t stop Roxanne initially telling her other housemates that she had been hit by Ryan, leaving the house divided over who to believe while Ryan was forced to vehemently defend himself.

Ryan James was left in tears after being wrongly accused of hitting Roxanne Pallett (Picture: Channel 5)

Eventually the housemates realised that Ryan would have been removed from the house if he had done anything untoward to Roxy and Ryan was slowly vindicated.



But in case there was any seeds of doubt in any housemates’ minds, CBB bosses have decided to show each evicted housemate the footage of the Ryan punching Roxy ‘like a boxer would punch a bag’, so they can be the judge for themselves.

And the reactions echo that of the nation’s, which, for the most part, is of shock, disgust and upset on behalf of Ryan.

Here’s how the evicted housemates have reacted so far…

Natalie Nunn

Natalie Nunn (Picture: PA)

Natalie was the first CBB evictee and she’s been spending her time since keeping up to date with CBB and relaying her opinions to her fans on Twitter.

And after seeing Roxanne accuse Ryan of hitting her, she made no secret of the fact she thought Roxanne had made the whole thing up, also tweeted Ryan’s girlfriend Lucy Mecklenburgh support.

Awwwww Lucy Ryan talked about u to me said it was ur birthday while in there was so sad he missed it! Good guy overall! Cant believe what roxanne said about him ! https://t.co/Rh6POFQq4C — natalie nunn (@missnatalienunn) August 31, 2018

Horrible acting this is why she aint been on a soap in over 10 years we all could see right throw the bullshit acting ?? https://t.co/RuwFzWrYr5 — natalie nunn (@missnatalienunn) September 1, 2018

And Natalie tweeted her allegiance to Denise Welch, who called out Roxanne for attempting to ruin Ryan’s career out of malice.

I like denise she is not holding back and thats exactly right what u said???????? https://t.co/qludviU1Ml — natalie nunn (@missnatalienunn) September 3, 2018

Rodrigo Alves

Rodrigo was removed from the house on Saturday 25 August, following reported ‘inappropriate behaviour’.

After seeing the clip, he tweeted his allegiance to Ryan via his girlfriend, Lucy Mecklenburgh.

@lucy_meck I look forward to meet you when Ryan is free!! Ryan is a true gentleman, a proud father and a loves brothers and family with a gentle soul. ❤️ — Rodrigo Alves (@RodrigoUHNWs) August 31, 2018

Chloe Ayling

Despite leaving the house last week and having access to her social media again, Chloe has kept quiet on the Roxanne scandal.

Ben Jardine

Ben was evicted on Friday night, following a showdown between him and Jermaine Pennant.

He was the closest housemate to Roxanne in the house, telling Emma during his interview how he trusted the former Emmerdale actress.

Ben Jardine is evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house (Picture: Channel 5)

And then he was shown the clip of Ryan play fighting with Roxanne.

His response? ‘Ah. Ah that’s not good. It breaks my heart. At the end of the day I said [to Roxanne], “Show me. Do what he did on me”, and she’s kind of [gone for it] and it wasn’t right.

‘To that [the clip], she’s laughed it off ‘ain’t she? Ah, now I feel like I’ve been mugged right off again.

‘I’m such a mug, aren’t I? It does my head in. I always fall for it, don’t I? That’s not what I got told. All it is, I just tried to do the right thing by saying, look it’s not right to do that.



‘The only reason I approached Ryan was because I didn’t want any tension. I don’t like to isolate people, that’s not me. I’ve seen the geezer was isolated for like 24 hours.

‘She’s scared to be in the same room. So all I’m trying to do is just ease the tension. I’ve gone back to Ryan and had a little cry with him, a little hug and just said to him, “it is what it is mate but hold your head up now, but get on, forget about it move forward”.

‘I just felt all day I’d been played, but I was only trying to do the right thing.’

Ben was left disappointed and shocked after seeing the footage of Roxanne in which she claims she was punched by Ryan (Picture: Channel 5)

‘She’s a lovely girl, she does what she does, I do feel a little bit of a mug sat here right now. But she’s a lovely girl.

‘I do feel a little bit upset and like I’ve got played.’

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However, he has since changed his tune, feeling no remorse for Roxanne whatsoever and calling her ‘cold and calculating’.

The Married At First Sight star told The Sun: ‘What she showed and portrayed to me was disgraceful.’

‘What she showed and portrayed to me was disgraceful,’ he told The Sun Online (Picture: Rex Features)

He continued: ‘Ryan is a genuine guy and I believe him all day long. I believed him when I hugged him in the pool and I looked into his eyes and saw what it did to him. I knew immediately that I’d been mugged off,’ he continued.

‘I went through the mill with that Roxanne. I’m upset and devastated by everything. For someone to do that and hit on all your soft spots. That’s cold and calculated.’


Jermaine Pennant

Jermaine Pennant (Picture: Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage)

During his eviction interview on Monday night, Emma Wills showed him the footage of the ‘punch’, explaining that ‘they wanted him to be clear about what actually happened’ between Ryan and Roxanne, to which he responded: ‘I think I’m pretty clear, but yeah, go for it.’

However, after watching the footage, Jermaine – who had been a fierce defender of Roxanne, admitted he was shocked at what he saw.

‘Is that it?!’ he said. ‘That’s poor. I was expecting something big!’

Emma then told him: ‘To be honest, it’s kind of eclipsed [you]… a week ago had you have come out, your story would’ve been much bigger, but that’s kind of…it’s gone huge.’ Without skipping a beat, he responded: ‘Cheers, Rox!’

He then admitted that he felt guilt over the incident, and admitted that he feared that the attack could’ve even been of a sexual nature without his knowledge.

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‘Now I feel like a mug,’ he admitted. That’s really bad. I was kind of sitting there saying “we won’t be speaking to Ryan” as it was ten times worse than something else. I thought it was something sexual, something really bad.’

‘That was pathetic – what was she thinking?’ he added. ‘It must’ve been some vendetta.’


However, after learning that Roxanne publicly apologised to Ryan and his family during her interviews on Jeremy Vine and Celebrity Big Brother on Monday, Jermaine has defended the former soap star.

Jermaine was a supporter of Roxanne’s in the CBB house (Picture: Channel 5)

He told Metro.co.uk: ‘I think the housemates don’t need to see the video; they know what happened. Ryan’s still in the house so that was that.’

‘I only came out yesterday so I’ve not seen her apology, but if she’s apologised that’s all she can do. It’s up to her how far she wants to go with it.

‘Look, if she messages me I’m obviously not going to not speak to her. If she wants to contact me, obviously I’m not going to shun her out.’

Hardeep Singh Kohli

Hardeep was the only CBB housemate not to be shown the footage of the incident in which Roxanne claims Ryan punched her.

Hardeep Singh Kohli was evicted on Friday 7 September (Picture: PA)

No reason has been given by CBB bosses for this.

However, in an exit interview Hardeep did call Roxanne ‘vindictive’ and threw his weight behind Ryan to win.

Speaking to The Sun, he said: ‘Once you start creating truths and embellishing facts and find yourself in a vindictive state of mind, there’s no coming back from that.

‘If I’m honest, I will concede I had worries about Roxanne’s mental health but it’s become quite clear that wasn’t an issue and she’s just that sort of person.

‘But it’s very frustrating for me because she has talent, she’s very quick witted.’

Discussing an incident in the house in which viewers believe Roxanne was trying to frame Hardeep and pretend he pushed her in the pool, Hardeep added: ‘On the opening night I pretended to throw Chloe into the pool and Roxanne jumped in and there was no physical contact. So from that moment…’

Hardeep was backing Ryan to win CBB.

The ‘punching row’ has attracted over 25,000 complaints to Ofcom.

It falls second in the most complained about Big Brother incidents to the race row that erupted in the 2007 series between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty.

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