Patsy Palmer’s Mickey Rourke response is a problem for Celebrity Big Brother

Patsy Palmer’s face said it all at the during her eviction interview on last night’s Celebrity Big Brother.

The EastEnders legend was elated, finally being granted her wish to leave the house and see her fairly, but her smile collapsed at the mention of two words: Mickey Rourke.

Days into the current series, Rourke was kicked out of Celebrity Big Brother after a string of offences: Grabbing host AJ Odudu, referring to Jojo Siwa by a homophobic slur, squaring up to Chris Hughes and reducing Ella Rae Wise to tears after joking about ‘coming in’ her.

He also slated Patsy cooking, calling her broccoli ‘inedible’ and she subsequently sobbed to Big Brother in the Diary Room.

But even then, it was clear there was more to her tears than Mickey’s verdict on her culinary skills.

Having to live in that confined space with such an overwhelming presence was so obviously unfair to the others around him, and he should have been evicted the moment he ogled AJ before even entered the house.

But when AJ and her co-host Will Best gleefully brought up Mickey, it was no laughing matter for Patsy.

She refused to even respond and instead sat their giving them both a telling death stare that she wasn’t ready to entertain questions about the disgraced Hollywood star, be it about her broccoli or his wildly inappropriate behaviour.

Will said, quite light-heartedly: ‘There were a few tricky moments you had to deal with while you were in there – I mean, people complaining about your broccoli….’

Patsy responded in total silence as nervous members in the audience chuckled.

AJ pushed further: ‘Did it really upset you when Mickey complained to your face about the food?’  

Patsy hesitated, but responded: ‘Not really about that…’

I’m surprised ITV brought Mickey up at all, let alone so flippantly.

Surely the question they should be asking all housemates who endured Mickey for longer than they should have first and foremost is: ‘Are you OK?’

If anything, Celebrity Big Brother should distance itself from the destruction of Mickey Rourke, not remind us of it so jovially.

This series has impressively managed to recover from its troubling start, the horror of Mickey Rourke felt like a distant memory until it became clear that he still haunts the remaining housemates this week.

On Monday night, the final eight stars nominated face to face, with Towie star Ella telling Chesney Hawkes: ‘When a certain someone was here and didn’t make me feel comfortable, I feel like, when certain jokes were made, you were in the same area and, as a man, you should’ve said, “That’s not OK.”

‘And then after, you’d say to me that you’re sorry, that you didn’t feel as if you stood up for me as you should, but then still continued to faff about with the skeleton and talk about Mickey every day.’

Visibly upset Chesney said: ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Ella. I’m sorry I did that.’

For the rest of the day, Chesney was still hurting. He explained that he has a daughter Ella’s age and it ‘killed him’ to think she didn’t feel he did his duty as a man to stand up to the Hollywood star.

It was a painful watch seeing such a young woman still clearly affected by the actions of Mickey – a deeply horrendous experience for any woman – and she endured it on national television by a man more than 50 years older than her and with a lot more power.

It’s a real shame as, otherwise, this Celebrity Big Brother has been exceptional.

When last year’s series felt stale, relying on Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne’s booking to create headlines over capturing the magic of Big Brother, since Mickey’s long overdue departure this season has felt so in line with the show’s heyday of the early noughties.

This has by far been one of – if not the – best Celebrity Big Brother casts of all-time.

When CBB is at its best it is without a shadow of a doubt the funniest show on television and there have been moments that made me howl with laughter, largely thanks to Donna Preston and Danny Beard, the two most deserving winners (in my eyes).

That unbeatable sense of humour, combined with the many powerful conversations about race, gender and their respective careers in showbusiness, this series has really played to its greatest strengths.