In this candid interview, Big Brother UK season 1 winner Craig Phillips shares a surprising story about his former housemate, Nasty Nick Bateman, revealing how Nick lied to him about his life in Sydney.
Craig recounts his disappointment after discovering that Nick had exaggerated his lavish lifestyle and professional success on a trip in which Craig travelled to Australia to propose to his then girlfriend.
As Big Brother returns to our screens with BoyleSports Games as the sponsor the season 1 show winner also reflects on the betrayal he felt during their time in the Big Brother house when Nick's infamous cheating scandal unfolded, causing a public backlash.
Do You Still Stay in Contact With Other Housemates?
Not as much nowadays, but we do speak a bit across social media now and again. I speak to some of my former housemates and a couple of the winners there.
The last BB housemate I saw and spent time with was Nick Bateman, Nasty Nick, who was in Australia, on the other side of the world.
I Was Disappointed As Nasty Nick Lied To Me About His Sydney Lifestyle
He’d been living out in Sydney, and my wife and I, Laura - she wasn’t my wife back then, just my girlfriend – we were travelling around the world, around Asia, went to Singapore and then crossed over to Australia. I was set to propose to Laura on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I messaged Nick to say I was coming to Australia and I’d never been before. I didn’t tell him about my surprise but I knew he lived in Sydney. I said, we’ve got to catch up, and he agreed. We caught up and straight away I was thinking to myself, He’s been bigging his life up to me, that he was living in this £15-20 million mansion, so every time Nick’s been to Liverpool, he’s come to stay at my house.
When I first came out of Big Brother, I had a key to Nick’s house for the first 12 months where I stored a lot of my clothes and bags when I was travelling around London. I would stay with him, and that was a bit ironic as we did fall out on the programme, but I had a bedroom in his house for about a year.
When I messaged him to say I was coming out to Australia, I thought, of course he’s going to ask me to stay, he claimed he had 10 bedrooms, but I didn’t get the invite to come and stay and I didn’t even get to see the multi-million mansion he had. He also told me he was an exec producer of a radio station in Australia for expats, which you’d think, if you had that job, you’ve got the first BB winner turning up for the first time, I’d just proposed to my girlfriend in Sydney a couple of days prior, you’d think he’d get me on there! Somehow he didn’t invite me to do that either.
As it turns out, I got back and spoke to a few other people, they told me about a different job he had in Sydney and that he wasn’t living in a ‘mansion’, he actually worked for a removal company.
To be really honest, I was disappointed, we know each other well enough and he doesn’t need to blow smoke up my arse. I take it for whatever it is, for me, I liked him as a friend and we had some great times. It was the first time he’d met Laura too. He’s got this way about him where he feels he needs to fabricate something and it’s a bit sad he has to do that. I was a bit disappointed he was lying to me, I wasn’t too impressed.
The ‘Nasty Nick’ Nickname & Public Backlash
It was very different to how we all felt in the house, we all lived in this house and we didn’t know how the public felt. I felt let down by Nick because we’d made friends and we made plans to do things after. I wear my heart on my sleeve and when he started to make plans and make friends with us all but then undermined us and tried to outsmart us and lie to us, it was disappointing.
To find out he was playing us all off, it wasn’t nice. He didn’t have to do that, he would’ve stayed till the end, but he chose to cheat and lie.
That was a really low blow, and we were all very upset and disappointed - we felt let down. I said if he doesn’t get kicked out I’m leaving myself. If he was cheating, we might as well have all cheated. He had to go, we just felt let down, and I think it would have easily been worse.
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