EXCLUSIVE: Caroline Monk, who starred in the 2025 Big Brother series, has opened up about her previous relationships with broadcaster Matthew Wright, saying, “I’m glad it was over. It was over.
Caroline Monk — the unmistakably candid Big Brother housemate — has finally chosen to lift the lid on one of the most enduring questions about her past: what life was really like behind closed doors with broadcaster Matthew Wright.
Long before she was causing chaos, laughter and the occasional controversy inside the 2025 Big Brother house, which saw 61 year old Richard take the crown, Caroline was known among certain corners of the entertainment world as the no-nonsense personality who once had a long, complicated romance with Wright, the former host of Channel 5’s weekday current-affairs show The Wright Stuff.
Their relationship existed well before Caroline found herself catapulted back into public consciousness through the reality show, forming a significant chapter in her life that she rarely revisited — until now.
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And when she does, she does it with the same jarring, door-to-doors honesty that predominated her time on television.
She explains, “He looked after me the entire time I had cancer,” with a confidence that suggests she has long made peace with the agony and the upheaval of that time. He looked after me. However, I believe he couldn’t handle me because I turned into my mad, crazy self once more when I got better.
She doesn’t speak with bitterness, nor does she romanticise the past, she says: “I haven’t got a bad word to say about him apart from… you know… I’m glad it was over. It just wasn’t right. He’s moody, I’m moody — it was just normal. And it was about twenty years ago, so I can’t believe it’s been that long.”
Caroline says she never heard from him again after they broke up: “No, I’ve never heard from him. We’ve never spoken. He’s one of millions, you know.”
It’s only after discussing Matthew that Caroline feels ready to revisit the intense, surreal reality of the Big Brother house — the environment that transformed her from a relatively private figure into one of the most polarising personalities of the series, and one whose eviction opened the floodgates for conversations she says viewers never got to see.
Caroline, who entered the house as one of the oldest contestants in the rebooted series, says that the generation gap coloured almost every experience she had inside those walls, creating a tension between her instinct to cause mischief and the cast’s collective reluctance to express an opinion.
She claims that she was about 35 years older than the majority of them. Before this year, they were completely ignorant. They lacked knowledge of who I was talking about when I couldn’t talk about music or my life. It was hell, unique, and fun.
One of the season’s defining storylines was Caroline’s frequently feisty relationship with eventual winner Richard, but she insists that the reality was more playful and mutual than what was initially expected.
She says, “I tried really hard to be his friend at first because none of the kids didn’t want to know him.” He disliked me, though. He simply chose not to. And I became sarky after he began to become so. It turned into a game. He adored every second of it. He was unsure of what to do as soon as I stopped insulting him. Please lie to me! Insult me, please! he’d say”.
She shakes her head at the memory of one of the show’s most controversial labels. “I got called a bully, but Big Brother never said one word to me. If they’d told me once, I would’ve died. It was banter. They didn’t show him being horrible to me.”
And despite her fiery moments, Caroline insists she was far more involved and far more nurturing in the house than the edit suggested. She claims she was the one inventing games, keeping spirits up, and comforting people in the early hours of the morning when the cameras weren’t focused on her.
She claims, “I’d like people to have spotted me talking to everyone and holding them when they were crying.” However, it is what it is.
The unexpectedly philosophical Caroline emerges from the house. After years of being popular on the outside, she discusses how to stop caring what people think. She discusses letting go as a liberation. She even makes fun of the fact that she didn’t even care about the cameras. She chuckles, “I forgot everything about them.” Without that, I would have appeared much better. tiny trickles in the showers were awful! My hair turned green. I’m grateful for my hats.
Caroline claims she would have supported Cameron if she had been asked who she wanted to win before Richard ultimately won. Cameron did it for a beautiful reason, she claims, but Emily is lovely. Richard already has a lot of money going!
