I was on Big Brother and quit fame to become a VICAR – parishioners still ask me about my time on show, says Glyn Wise
HE was the dopey teen who strolled into the Big Brother house in a lifeguard outfit, before charming the nation when he sang about cooking an egg for the first time.
But when overnight fame became too much for 2006 runner-up Glyn Wise, he turned to Jesus instead — and is now a trainee vicar.
In an exclusive interview ahead of Big Brother’s return tomorrow, the 35-year-old Welshman tells how he counts Hollywood actor and Wrexham AFC co-owner Ryan Reynolds as one of the congregation at his local church in North Wales.
And he reveals how he plotted his way into the most famous house in the country 17 years ago for series seven — then wet himself just as he was about to make his TV debut.
Glyn was just 18 when he went into the reality show and still in school, where he was head boy.
He recalls: “I was in my school uniform, texting the producers saying, ‘Can I please get in?’.
“And I was going to all the interviews while trying to do A-levels at the same time.
‘I decided to be nasty in the auditions’
“It was just a crazy time, but I prayed and wished every wish I had to go into that house — and it came true.”
Talking in St Michael’s Church in Camden, North London, where he took part of his priest training, Glyn tells me how he watched every previous series of Big Brother, bought all the books to do with the show and played the Big Brother board game so he could work out how he could stand out to the producers.
Originally from Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, Glyn says: “My parents drove me to Manchester for the auditions and I arrived in my lifeguard uniform.
“I remembered (2005 Big Brother winner) Anthony Hutton in his Superman pants, so I got my look.
“I wasn’t as good looking as him but I was like, ‘I’ll pretend that I am’, and I decided I was going to be a bit nasty in the auditions.
“I would pinpoint something on everybody, going, ‘You’re a bit fat’, ‘You’ve got a mole on your nose’, and I’d go on and on.
“I’m gutted now, standing here in the house of God, but it made me stand out. The producers were like, ‘Well, this one is a firecracker. Let’s put him in’.”
Glyn couldn’t believe this dreams were about to come true, which led to a rather embarrassing incident while he was waiting to make his way into the Big Brother house while dressed as a lifeguard.
He says: “I went to the toilet and managed to sneak a look through the window and could see somebody going into the house. So then I got really excited, forgot what I was doing and I peed my pants.
“The producers came into the toilet and I was like, ‘I’m not going into the show because I’m wet everywhere’.
“I had to stand completely naked, because I forgot to put underwear on, with my shorts underneath the hand dryer.
“Then I went into the house and I got booed!”
The boos didn’t continue for long, however, as the nation quickly fell in love with Glyn’s naivety and lovable nature.
While in the competition, which was won by Pete Bennett, he was friends with all his housemates, including the late Nikki Grahame and his glamorous countrywoman Imogen Thomas, who he would often speak to in Welsh.
But his most famous moment was when he cooked an egg for the very first time, and made up a song about it.
Glyn had no idea that those few minutes of the 93 days he spent in the house would hit such a chord with viewers.
And he was astonished to come out to cheering crowds singing his made-up song and waving signs with his face on an egg.
Laughing, he says: “I didn’t realise people would be having it on their ringtones and I’d be singing it in nightclubs.
“I had appearances at 62 nightclubs all over the UK, going ‘I’m cooking an egg’, and I’m like, ‘What’s happened to me? What has my life come to?’. It was like ‘Wow, free drinks, free champagne’.
“I was on with Richard and Judy, which I loved, the Friday Night Project and Ready Steady Cook, which I lost. It was amazing.”
Glyn was astounded that he was getting paid £2,500 just for “turning up and waving” at nightclubs.
But the sudden fame came with its downsides.
He says: “I kept telling my parents, ‘I feel like I’m constantly in athletics, waiting for the gun to go off in the 100 metre race’, and I wasn’t eating properly.
“I didn’t know at the time but, looking back now, I was suffering from anxiety. It got too much at one point.”
Things got worse when he found he had “very quickly fallen into the Z-list”.
Glyn explains: “I’d say for a week you’re an A-list celebrity.
“Then you fall off to the B-list within a month.
“You’re on the C-list until Christmas, then you’re just hanging around the Z-list for the rest of your life.”
‘Can we talk about Jesus Christ now?’
After dropping out of the limelight Glyn went on to have a normal life, heading to university two years after Big Brother before becoming a teacher.
But it was a tough adjustment.
He says: “The problem with having a real job afterwards is you’d been to a nightclub and got free champagne and waved at people for two and a half grand, then you had to work a whole month, marking books and teaching, for two grand. I was like, ‘This doesn’t make any sense. Real life has no appeal’.”
Glyn decided to go travelling and ended up working in Shanghai, China, where he “got rid of the Glyn from Big Brother tag”.
With Christianity growing at a massive scale across Asia, Glyn, always a Christian, embraced his faith and decided to train as a vicar once he got home in 2020.
There is a lot of work to do before he is ordained.
Having trained for a year at Camden, he is now back in Wrexham, about to go into his second year of a three-year course at university.
He explains: “I’m learning theology, going into depth about the Bible and learning how to cope with people, because you’re not only the vicar, you’re someone to listen, you’re a psychiatrist, you have to help people’s lives out and spread the good word.
“So there’s a concoction of stuff that you need to learn before you become a vicar.”
After three years Glyn will become a curate, then he has to wait for the bishop to lay his hands on him to ordain him as a priest.
“They can say no whenever they want. I have to be well-behaved,” he adds.
Despite sporting a very different look now, Glyn says he still gets Big Brother fans coming up to him in church — and he will often weave his past into his sermons.
He says: “I’ve got a beard now, I’ve shaved my head, I’m a man not a boy, but yeah, there’s conversations about Big Brother that still come up. People come to church and are like, ‘I really loved you when you cooked that egg’.
“And I’m like, ‘Can we talk about Jesus Christ now, the Saviour?’.
“But I feel like when you’ve lived a good life, you’ve got a lot to talk about when you’re up in the pulpit doing a sermon.”
Glyn is looking forward to watching Big Brother when it returns tomorrow as it brings back so many good memories for him.
“It was a golden time,” he says. “Like, wow. I can’t even believe it happened. It was incredible and I wouldn’t change a thing.
“I’ve just had an amazing life because of Big Brother and I’m so thankful for it.”
- Big Brother: The Launch is on ITV1, ITV2 and ITVX at 9pm tomorrow.