ITV has briefly removed another episode of Big Brother: Late & Live after audience members were spotted wearing ‘pro-Palestine T-shirts’.
The reality series first came under pressure two weeks ago when an episode of the main series was edited to erase housemate Ali’s Wear The Peace T-shirt – a symbol of solidarity with Palestine amid the ongoing war.
After the episode was taken down from streaming service ITVX, viewers noticed the change and expressed outrage at the move to edit it out, while others complained to Ofcom about the item of clothing being allowed on the show.
Then, this week, audience members at the spin-off series turned up to filming on Monday in similar clothing items.
After being asked to change into plain tops, the trio refused and were then escorted from the ITV studio in Harlesden, North West London.
‘The recording of Late and Live was taking place when suddenly crew came out and told the audience members in question there was an issue with their t-shirts,’ a source said.
‘With the show in the middle of recording they were asked to step out while it was dealt with away from the cameras,’ they added when speaking to The Sun.
Metro understands that audience members were given the options to remove the T-shirts, with the production team having spare ones on hand, and stay for the recording but made the decision to leave.
The episode wasn’t available on ITVX until it had been re-edited, with the broadcaster referring to ‘compliance reasons’ for the delay.
Before the reason for the show’s release online being delayed was revealed, viewers made it clear they were unhappy.
Cocomelonate shared their frustrations: ‘What now and who decides what’s compliant and what’s not???’ ‘ITV are the pits behaving like this,’ Joe fumed.
Danny Denay shared their intentions to ‘look for some blurring / jumpcut edits’ to figure out the change.
‘Oh what is it because of now? Is it because of someone’s shirt again?’ asked Chantelle.
Last month, ITV deleted, edited and reuploaded an episode to erase housemate Ali Bromley’s Wear The Peace charity T-shirt which featured a watermelon – a symbol of solidarity with Palestine amid the ongoing war.
The watermelon symbol, which is in the colours of the Palestinian flag, has become synonymous with the pro-Palestine movement amid the ongoing war, which has killed more than 42,000 people in Gaza since the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7.
It first emerged in 1967 after the Six-Day War, after public displays of the Palestinian flag became a criminal offence in Gaza and the West Bank, according to Time.
Figures published by the watchdog Ofcom revealed that 552 complaints were made over the episode featuring the T-shirt.
A Big Brother spokesperson said at the time: ‘All Housemate items are checked by our production team before they go into the Big Brother House to ensure they comply with the Rules and compliance requirements.
‘Big Brother does not allow any personal items into the House that could be deemed harmful.
‘We regret that the implications of this particular item of clothing were not fully understood in our bag checks or prior to the broadcast of last night’s show.
‘We apologise to any viewers who have been offended by the broadcast and assure viewers that Big Brother was unaware of the implications of the image.
‘The item of clothing has been removed from the House. The Housemate has been spoken to and they have expressed that they are unaware of the implications and did not wish to cause any harm or offence.
‘Any offensive messaging associated with the image does not reflect the values or beliefs of Big Brother.’
In a later episode, some viewers were left horrified by comments Nathan King made about Khaled, who has a Palestinian background.
During a task, Nathan, 24, was asked: ‘Who do you think is holding back their true self?’
He replied: ‘I struggled with this one but I’m unfortunately going to go for Khaled.
‘When we’re having a conversation, he maybe spends too long looking at the camera and not at the person sitting across from him.
‘Khaled, I assume, will have a lot of opinions on things that are happening around the world that are maybe close to home for him but I thought he would be more vocal in his thoughts about it.
‘When we spoke about politics and current affairs in the world in Israel or Lebanon, not everyone has to be an outspoken t**t like me and say what they’re thinking and that’s fine, but he’s holding back on his true self by not speaking about it because he’s thinking about the outside potentially.’
‘This is a bit mad, to say that I’m not supporting my people,’ Khaled replied from another room, after listening to Nathan’s comments.
After watching the events unfold, some fans fumed that the criticism was uncalled for.
Amongst the social media posts was one by WrittenByDavid, who wrote on X: ‘Khaled is not sharing enough of his traumatic personal life experiences for Nathan’s liking???’
User eldserks wrote: ‘Nathan is a truly weirdo? Policing a Palestinian man about how they talk about their own experiences is CRAZY.’
