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Brian Dowling reveals his Big Brother memories are "tainted" by manner of firing

Brian Dowling opens up on his firing as Big Brother host, saying that his experience was "tainted by how I was treated".

Former Big Brother host Brian Dowling has hit out at the show's production company for the way he was sacked in 2013.

The two-time winner of the iconic series took over from Davina McCall as main presenter when it switched from Channel 4 to Channel 5 in 2011, but he was abruptly dropped after two series and replaced by Emma Willis.

Both McCall and Willis have appeared in the E4 retrospective Big Brother: Best Shows Ever over the last fortnight, although mentions of Dowling have been kept to a minimum, prompting him to accuse the broadcaster of "trying to rewrite history".

Writing on Twitter yesterday, McCall revealed: "Just an FYI . We did ask @brianofficial to be part of the show. He was ultimate housemate!!!! That was a no brainer."

The post prompted Dowling to reply with a lengthy statement detailing his exit from the show under the title "FYI".

"I found out from The Sun newspaper that I was being fired and replaced, and it took the production company a further 4 weeks to confirm that, without a single apology, phone call, text, email or even a bunch of flowers or a single question asking how I was," he wrote.

"My whole time on the show was tainted by how I was treated and it still affects me today.

"The same production company asked if I wanted to film a 10 second message on my phone saying hello to you and Rylan. Surprisingly I didn't really feel like doing that."

Dowling first triumphed on the second series of Big Brother in 2001 before winning the all-stars edition, Ultimate Big Brother, in 2010.

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Brian Dowling in his Big Brother 2 headshot
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