One of the biggest surprises in Celebrity Big Brother last night wasn’t necessarily who entered the house – but who didn’t! At one point, Katie Price was favourite to win, despite the fact that she hasn’t (yet!) gone through those doors and, after a teaser silhouette was revealed in advance of the show, people would have put money on The Chase star Mark ‘The Beast’ Labbett entering the competition.

In fact, some people did as Coral had Mark as a joint favourite to win with odds of 7-1 at one stage.

We admit it, this certainly had us fooled – we couldn’t quite believe it when we approached Mark to find out what the score was only to be told that this guy really isn’t him. Honestly:

This celeb isn't going into the #CBB House to make friends, by the sound of it! Any ideas who it could be? pic.twitter.com/v7lH9dPprN — Big Brother UK (@bbuk) December 28, 2016

People were absolutely certain that it was the silhouette of ‘The Beast’:

But it actually turned out to be Hollywood legend James Cosmo – as people to be mistaken for go, Mark has done alright here. In hindsight, we perhaps should have been thrown that The Beast would be a die hard Eminem fan but then we didn’t have James down as a Slim Shady groupie either, to be fair.




When we spoke to Mark about the assumption that he was taking part, he admitted that even his colleagues and loved ones thought that he wasn’t telling them something.

He said: ‘Despite all the press stories, Metro.co.uk was the only media outlet to actually ask me if I was on. My friends thought it was me, my brothers thought it was me, even I thought it was me! I have had at least two friends wanting to put a bet on me. I cannot believe I was briefly 7-1 joint favourite with Corals!

Not Mark, but James (Picture: PA/Channel 5)

‘The Chase producers phoned my agent at the weekend and asked him if we something to tell them, especially as I am filming the Chase at Elstree this month!’

That might have been an awkward conversation if he had been going in but Mark told us that no conversations or approaches had been made in relation to Celebrity Big Brother and it just so happened that he has a very similar build to James Cosmo.

He continued: ‘I thought James Cosmo makes a great body double for me despite being nearly 20 years older. I know he is a good friend of one the producers on The Chase so I suspect his teaser video might not have been a coincidence…’

Possibly not – this is Mark’s silhouette in an episode of The Chase:

So would Mark ever consider doing Celebrity Big Brother himself?

Not ruling anything out, he replied: ‘As a working minor celeb I will consider any show if the fee is right. Five years ago, I was earning £100 a day as a supply teacher so I always keep my eye on the important things in life.

‘If I went on CBB, the isolation would be my biggest problem – with my job I am a news and information junkie and I am always reading or web surfing info so I would probably suffer withdrawal symptoms from the digital world.’

Back at his day job, Mark yesterday discovered that the reigning Brain Of Britain was up against him, after the contestant kept his quizzing prowess quiet. In the true style of The Beast, he managed to dispatch him from the game before then defeating the rest of a strong team in a tense final match.



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