Memory loss

Consider these two statements:

I’m homophobic. I’m homophobic.

And:

I can’t believe people think I’m homophobic. I’m so not homophobic.

The first statement comes from Kate on last Monday night’s Big Brother Uncut. The second comes from the same person a week later, after the monumental effects of the first statement hit home. She’s out, and everyone thinks she’s a homophobe. Probably because she did such a good job convincing everyone she was.

Oh, Kate, Kate, Kate, I almost feel for her. As far as fuck-ups go, Kate’s repeated on-national-television announcement of her own homophobia was a pretty big one, and might well have cost her about $600,000 in Big Brother winnings -“ if The Daily Telegraph is anything to go on.

In case any readers have been locked in a library without television, radio, newspapers or the internet for the past week, everyone’s reporting that the Sydney Star Observer’s anti-Kate campaign in last week’s paper got the ever-powerful gay lobby so riled up we all voted her out with the biggest margin of any housemate in the whole series. The Tele even called her a victim of the Star‘s efforts.

For the record, we’re flattered, but not so sure those claims are entirely accurate. While the SSO is prepared to take some of the credit for raising awareness about Kate’s incredibly revolting response to two boys kissing, it wasn’t just our many thousands of readers who had enough of a problem with it to ring up and vote her out a couple of times. The Big Brother bulletin boards were full of Kate-hate from all sorts of people and from all over the country.

The funny thing is, I actually kind of liked Kate right up until that night. She seemed kind of smart and kind of funny, and I’m sure she had a bit of a gay following. But her comments were offensive, ridiculous and just plain stupid, and the show was right to screen them (even if they did obviously think a quick kiss between two boys required a late night timeslot).

Anyway, Kate got kicked out and gave a very decent television apology after a full day of grilling about her self-professed homophobia. She has gay friends, apparently, and she loves them, too. I guess they don’t do much kissing in front of her.

Disclaimer: Big Brother housemate Tim Brunero is a good friend of a good friend of Pitch Bitch.