SCOTS Big Brother contestant Ellis Hillon who was removed from the show following a probe into offensive tweets insists she is not racist.
A Twitter account under the name of the 20-year-old fast food worker from South Lanarkshire produced a tweet in 2014 about the 9/11 terror attacks, which contained a racial slur. She would have been 15 at the time.
She was also caught up in a sectarian row after her Facebook account appeared to show Loyalist messages.
Big Brother producers started an investigation after racist messages which came from the @EllisHillon Twitter account resurfaced.
Ms Hillon from Cambuslang is also at the centre of a fresh investigation by her employers McDonald's over the historic messages.
She has now broken her silence to say she was "heartbroken" over being removed from the show.
She added: “I want to stress how sorry I am about any offence and upset that was caused due to what I have said on social media.
“I understand that I was totally in the wrong and I should never have said such horrible things.
“All the comments were from my teenage years and I am deeply ashamed of them. I didn’t stop to think how they could be so hurtful at the time.”
The initial tweet that instigated the entire affair was posted to Twitter on September 11, 2014, and read: “Oh f**k aye its 9/11!! RIP to everyone who died n f**k they smelly p**i terrorist bast***s!!!”
Another questionable tweet surfaced on January 24, 2015 saying the n-word.
"“Real n****s #sbo,” it read.
The Twitter account, under the handle @ellishillon, was deleted a few hours after Ms Hillon appeared on the launch show for the new series.
Ms Hillon added: “I am totally heartbroken at the fact that my dream of going on Big Brother has ended this way and I wasn’t able to show people the ‘real me’.
“If I had been given the chance I would have shown everyone that I’m not racist. I was getting on very well and interacting with the other housemates from different backgrounds and I want people to know that I’m not a bad person. I hope people can forgive me.”
A new account with the handle @HillonEllis, which claimed to be run by her sisters Nevada and Mel, and appeared later to be deleted claimed: “There were no bad tweets!!! People just talk absolute rubbish and make fake things up. There will be no negativity here and my sister will shine. Good night!!!!”
It was not the first time the show, which is disappearing from Channel 5 after the current series, was forced to take action over offensive language or posts by contestants.
During the 2018 celebrity version of the show, which ended on Monday, TV star Rodrigo Alves was given a formal warning after he used the N-word in the house.
Former Coronation Street star Ken Morley was ejected from the Celebrity Big Brother house after media regulator Ofcom received more than 200 complaints after he used the n-word during a conversation with US singer Alexander O’Neal.
During Big Brother 8, contestant Emily Parr was also ejected for calling a housemate the n-word.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel