Levi Roots has defended his Celebrity Big Brother housemate Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, insisting she has been a victim of ‘micro bullying’.
The 65-year-old entrepreneur appeared on This Morning on Monday after he and Ekin-Su were evicted from the CBB house on Friday night.
Ekin-Su pulled out of her own scheduled TV appearance on Lorraine just hours earlier, amid a media storm which has seen the Love Island star insist she was badly-edited on the show without a true depiction of her behaviour.
Levi leaped to his co-star’s defence on Monday, telling Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard on This Morning that he thinks ‘everyone was being unfair to Ekin-Su.
‘I thought there was a little bit of micro bullying going on, not directly but people were picking on her for some reason.’
Levi Roots has defended his Celebrity Big Brother housemate Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, insisting she has been a victim of ‘micro bullying’
‘I thought people were looking at her for how she was in the house. It’s important we all concentrated in the bubble and how we were with each other.’
‘I didn’t think it was fair people were judging her on what she did in shows before. I had to put a bit of an arm around her and told her she was like my daughter. And when that moment comes, you have to protect that person and I was really trying to G her up so she felt better.’
He added: ‘When her name kept being called and people voting for her left right and centre, I really felt for her. I love Ekin-Su, she’s a brilliant girl.’
CBB Late And Live descended into chaos on Friday as Ekin-Su clashed with Layton Williams after her eviction from the house.
She attempted to ‘blame the edit’ for her unfair portrayal on the show but Layton, also 29, was having none of it and told her she was dragging out the explosive argument with Marisha Wallace during Thursday’s episode.
While some branded the former Strictly star a ‘bully’ and said that he did to Ekin-Su what others did to him during his time on the dancing show, others disagreed and dubbed him the ‘voice of the people’.
Ekin-Su broke down in hysterical tears after Marisha picked her in the face-face nominations before storming off to her bed as the musical star, 38, followed to apologise.
Speaking about the dramatic performance, which saw Ekin-Su branding the theatre star as ‘fake’, Layton shot back at the reality star as he revealed his full support for Marisha in the confrontation.
The 65-year-old entrepreneur appeared on This Morning on Monday after he and Ekin-Su were evicted from the CBB house on Friday night
Ekin exclaimed: ‘When Marisha nominated me that actually showed me her true colours, that she had been thinking about winning the game the whole time.’
Host AJ Odudu attempted to reason with the star as she suggested: ‘Well what we have got to remember, you know she’s American it’s strategy, game playing.’
But Layton was quick to intervene as he explained: ‘Marisha had to pick someone basically and she did pick you, just like you picked Louis.
‘Louis squashed it you know and kind of kept it moving and unfortunately you dragged it on and I kind of did feel for Marisha in that moment.
‘I was like, you know what this is her big day, she had just been told she had been nominated for an Olivier Award and to see her crying in the Big Brother…’ as Ekin-Su interrupted: ‘You haven’t seen everything they have cut stuff out but ok.’
Yet Layton was having none of it, as he hit back: ‘Don’t blame it on the edit, one thing we are not going to do is blame it on the edit.
‘We’re not blaming it on the edit girl. We see what we see and it was just a shame, it was a big shame.’
As host Will Best opened it up to the audience to try and garner some support for Ekin-Su, he struggled to find an audience member that was on her side.
Levi also defended Louis Walsh’s house antics during his This Morning appearance, insisting he felt partly to blame for the X Factor star’s headline-grabbing rants about other celebs.
‘I blame myself in a way because Louis and I formed a great relationship because we had musical things in common and were similar ages,’ Levi explained.
‘It was in conversations with me that he has made the comments, he was being honest when he was talking to me.’
‘I don’t blame him for coming out like that he is a very clever man and very sharp minded he knows what he is saying. I think having a chat with him he wanted to have a real conversation.’
