‘CBB’s Mickey Rourke’s brazen homophobia towards JoJo Siwa is a stark reminder of how far we have to go’

Y2K nostalgia is having a real moment. Skinny jeans are making a comeback, chokers are in, and so too, apparently, is the type of homophobia I remember from my school days.

Last night (9th April), Celebrity Big Brother UK viewers were left shocked after actor Mickey Rourke made several bigoted remarks towards musician and former Dance Moms star JoJo Siwa.

Rourke, who is 72, asked Siwa whether she “likes boys or girls”, to which she replied, “me? Girls. My partner is non-binary”. He then went on to tell her: “If I stay longer than four days, you won’t be gay anymore.”

Siwa, who is only 21, held her ground by telling him: “I can guarantee I’ll still be gay and I’ll still be in a very happy relationship.” Apparently, this wasn’t enough for Rourke, who later in the episode said he was “going to vote the lesbian out real quick”, and then ‘jokingly’ referred to her as a homophobic slur, saying, “I need a f*g”, before pointing to Siwa and saying, “I’m not talking to you”.

The actor was reprimanded by Big Brother in the Diary room, being told: “Further language or behaviour of this nature could lead to you being removed from the Big Brother house. Mickey, do you understand?” But for many viewers, including myself, this isn’t enough.

Rourke’s comments add to the harmful belief that queer women and non-binary people, but lesbians in particular, just haven’t met the right man yet, and that our identity is something that can be ‘fixed’ — usually by them. Normally, these comments come from insecure men who can’t believe that women might exist as anything other than potential sexual partners for them. The idea that we might have a life, an identity, and thriving relationships that don’t include them at all is too much for them to handle.

Every queer woman I know, including myself, has experienced a man telling us he can ‘turn us’, or flat out refusing to believe that we might prefer to be with a woman rather than a man, or not want to be with men at all. The first time it happened to me was when I was about 14 years old, and my boyfriend (by that, I mean we’d put each other’s names in our MSN handles) mentioned to his friends that I’m bisexual. “I wouldn’t let my girl be bi,” one of his friends replied, before telling me, “I’d fuck that right out of you.” I’m pretty sure none of us had even had sex yet.

Not only are these comments hurtful and annoying, but they also contribute to the fact that nearly a quarter of queer people have been subjected to sexual violence intended to ‘convert’ them, according to Galop, with lesbians, trans men, and asexual women experiencing some of the highest rates of so-called ‘corrective rape’.

While I’d hoped that these views would be left in my teen years along with those platform heel trainers and ‘once in a lifetime’ recessions, they all seem to be having a resurgence. Galvanised by Donald Trump’s second administration and his open attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), being ‘anti-woke’ — or as you could call it, openly bigoted — is becoming more acceptable in public life: from TikTok trends making fun of queer and autistic people to hosts of GB News saying the full LGBTQ acronym “includes paedophiles”. Thankfully, this latter incident prompted a ‘record number of complaints’ to Ofcom, which has launched an investigation.

Rourke’s comments to Siwa happen to coincide with a new research published by the ONS that found LGB+ (the research focused on sexual orientation only) were 2.5 times more at risk of self-harm compared to our heterosexual counterparts. The world is becoming a scarier place to navigate as a queer person, and Celebrity Big Brother UK not only airing the footage but letting Rourke stay with just a slap on the wrist contributes to the perception of queer people as acceptable targets for harassment.

In a statement shared with Cosmopolitan UK, a Big Brother spokesperson said: “All housemates receive respect and inclusion training and an extensive briefing from the Big Brother senior team to prepare them for living in the house and to set out Big Brother’s expectation for appropriate behaviour and language. Housemates are monitored 24 hours a day and instances of inappropriate behaviour are dealt with appropriately and timely.”

Lesbian and queer women can’t be ‘fixed’ because there’s nothing broken about our identities and sexualities. Even if our sexuality was something we could control, many of us would still choose to love women and non-binary people — and we don’t need a man three times our age (or anyone) to remind us why.

JoJo Siwa handled the incident with incredible strength and grace, but she shouldn’t have had to — if Big Brother can’t properly handle contestants being homophobic, maybe it should be left where those views belong: in the past.

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