OFCOM has ruled that this years Celebrity Big Brother did not breach broadcasting rules despite hundreds of complaints about rapper Coolio.

Most of the complaints related to his sexist and allegedly bullying behaviour, however OFCOM said that Coolio was the “villain of the piece” for many but that “such a role, after 10 years of Big Brother, is generally expected by the audience”.

Ofcom said the series complied with rules because “any potentially offensive content that was shown and the manner in which the friction and the arguments were handled and presented by Big Brother on behalf of Channel 4, were adequately justified by the context”.

Channel 4 said it was pleased with OFCOM’s decision.

“Conflicts can arise within the Big Brother house, but both the producers and commissioning editors encourage housemates to work differences out amongst themselves initially,” it said in a statement.

“Channel 4 has robust procedures in place to safeguard housemates’ welfare and avoid any harm or offence to fellow housemates or viewers, and Big Brother will intervene as and when necessary.”

It’s been a helluva night folks, hasn’t it? I’ve just come back to my hotel room from the Celebrity Big Brother final and press conference.

Let me say first, that the highlight of the entire night was Jack Whitehall on Big Brother’s Big Mouth. Okay, as one journalist next to me remarked, he was swearing much more than usual, probably on account of the final night adrenaline. But that whirlwind performance and minor bitchfight between Tina Malone and Michelle Heaton was priceless. (I heard later on that Michelle broke down in tears during the commercial break and none of her housemates comforted her – a member of the audience did instead.)

Anyway, as you might have guessed, Ulrika Jonsson’s win tonight has caused many a tabloid editor to tear up the front pages declaring Verne Troyer the winner. But more than that, her downright refusal to answer questions about her private life meant that there were no juicy details to include in tomorrow’s papers. In fact, when it came to speculation on her fee, she started to become downright hostile – finally claiming that the press wouldn’t be asking a man that question.

I remember one journalist asked whether being apart from your kids for a few weeks was worth all the fretting and crying she did. Ulrika – quite rightly – rounded on the young lady and asked her if she had any kids, concluding that if she’d had kids she would not have asked that question and would have understood how hard it was. Score 1 to Jonsson.

It surprising that anyone got a word in edgeways, because a belligerent Coolio dominated any question that was asked, to the obvious annoyance of the other housemates (Terry, Ulrika, Verne, Coolio and Ben were all present). Coolio’s a funny guy, but I’m guessing that most people were wishing someone had switched off his microphone about halfway through the interview.

I’m glad I’m a blogger though, and not a tabloid journalist. Verne’s shock exit (fourth place? wtf?) totally threw everybody. Then when Coolio went out, everybody was shocked. Mostly at how Ulrika – who I’ll admit I thought was some kind of national pariah – had managed to stay in right to the end. I’m still baffled as to how she got that groundswell of support.

Lisa mentioned in her liveblog post that she was looking out for me in the crowd. I was a little surprised to discover that the press – like you at home – got to watch the show on TV in a little cafe-type building on the studio. Yes – despite the fact that Davina was rocking the stage not five minutes from where we sat, we were watching it on telly. Bizarre beyond belief.

But better yet, during Terry Christian’s interview, the television set was drowned out to the sound of fireworks. It was only then that I was aware of the 10-15 minute gap between recording and broadcasting that they use to cut out expletives. Basically, while you were watching Terry’s interview, Ulrika was in the process of coming out of the house. How weird is that?

On The Finalists

Here’s a little bit of my impressions of the final five housemates from what I experienced of them at the press conference:

On Terry Christian: Terry was exactly like you saw on TV. Down to earth, funny, the type of guy you’d like to go out for a pint with. Seems like a really decent bloke. As a settled family man, there was no scandal, and the press were left scratching their heads for questions to ask him – apart from the obvious ‘bring back The Word’ ones.

On Ben Adams: I’m inclined not to call being quiet or slightly dull a personality deficiency like most people. Ben seems to be a nice guy, he’s just not quick with the one-liners, especially in a house with characters like Coolio and Terry and Verne.

On Verne Troyer: Verne’s an interesting character. I suspect he’s spent much of his life being patronized, but still manages to take it with such good grace. He’s a shy enough fella, but has no problem standing up for himself – he took Coolio to task for answering a journalist’s question on his behalf.

On Coolio: No joke – you could literally hear Coolio before you could see him. It was how we knew the celebs had re-entered the Big Mouth studio for the press conference. He didn’t shut up during the entire session and was funny for about 35% of it. Much as the world will always be indebted to him for Gangsta’s Paradise, he’s surprisingly annoying – I wouldn’t want to be cooped up in a house with him for a month.

On Ulrika Jonsson: I want to give Ulrika the benefit of the doubt – she’s been burned by the press on many occasions, and her attitude toward the journalists was sharp and seemed unfriendly. If you saw her on Big Mouth you’ll know what I mean. It was like she’d done her job and now wanted to go home. But on the other hand, she may have been uncomfortable being the center of attention.

Either way, as the winner of the show, she didn’t give the journalists much to work with – to be fair, the lines of questioning were either about her family or private life or about her fee. But what else do you ask Ulrika?

I’m going to bed now…

…so I’m going to sum things up. In what was largely a fairly calm household, there were very few axes to grind. And the five celebs left at the end were seasoned enough to know not to give a scandal away for free. Let’s see what comes out when the megabucks rounds of interviews and magazine deals are done.

Anyway, having seen some of the highlights on the show this evening, the 2009 celebrity housemates did a damned entertaining job, didn’t they? I don’t need to read about them hating each other in the papers.

Congratulations to Big Brother though, for managing to bounce back so well. I think this series has proved that there may well be life in the old dog yet, and that it might still be too early to write the all-seeing eye off!

My one parting comment to you though – isn’t it funny how this year was so entertaining, yet there wasn’t one mention of ‘evil’ Big Brother? Maybe it’s time to retire that tactic…

Here are some shots of the Big Brother celebs from tonight’s series finale!

Ben finished in fifth place, Verne in fourth, Coolio in third, Terry Christian in second and Ulrika won! Was anyone else surprised by the result?

Click on the link below.

Tonight’s Celebrity Big brother final has been a night of surprises!

First Verne leaves in fourth place after he was hotly tipped to win, and then Coolio got the news that he had finished in third place. Coolio received 25.3% of the votes

Coolio will be leaving the house in about thirty minutes and he looked thoroughly shell shocked at the prospect.

Winning the show tonight will be Ulrika Jonsson or Terry Christian, who will you be voting for?

Coolio and Ulrika Jonsson are both up for eviction on tomorrow night’s live Celebrity Big Brother show.

The American rapper got three votes while Shooting Stars panellist Jonsson received four.

It’s going to be a big battle with the pair being two of the biggest characters in the house. I imagine Ulrika will be the one to go, simply because the house would be a boring place for us viewers if Coolio wasn’t around.

Who will you be voting out? Leave you comments below.

Davina McCall has always been a woman after my own heart, no time more so than when she defended Big Brother housemate Coolio this week.

Coolio is being blasted from all sides for being a sexist bully, but show host Davina believes that people have the wrong idea about the rapper.

She said: “I don’t think he hates women at all. I think he has a great respect for certain types of women.

“He is judgmental about women, but Coolio is not alone in that.

“There are a lot of men in the world who think that if a woman wears a short skirt or wiggles her bum, or if she hangs out with a man, then that is inappropriate.”

Big Brother rewarded the celebrity housemates with alcohol last night and after a few glasses of champagne Verne Troyer started to go a little bit crazy.

As he entered the diary room some of the housemates expressed their surprise at his behaviour but Coolio explained to La Toya:

“A lot of dwarves tend to die young. So that’s why he’s having fun. That’s why he travels, that’s why he lives his life. He’s almost 41 and most dwarves don’t live past 50,” he said.

Ulrika, Ben and Tommy joined the group and Coolio went on:

“You can tell his body is falling apart now. He used to do his own stunts, he used to dive all over the place, do his own flips…” he then joked that even with his body starting to fail, Verne could still do better press ups than Tommy Sheridan.

On last night’s Celebrity Big Brother show we saw Coolio being called to the diary room and spoken to about his behaviour towards his fellow housemates.

For the duration of this years series Coolio has been teasing Michelle about her suspect relationship with former boyband singer, Ben Adams. Anyone watching the show will know that Michelle has not taken well to the ribbing and on occasions has gotten pretty upset and tearful.

Things came to a head a few days ago when Michelle reacted badly to another bout of teasing and spent the night, and the next morning crying. Coolio refused to apologise and when the nomination results were announced he became increasingly loud, shouting at Ulrika that she had to leave his house and mockingly calling Michelle ‘Miss Popular’.

Ulrika callled him a “bully”, and a “vile man” and soon the rapper was summoned to the diary room where he was given a stern talking to by Big Brother.

So do you agree with Ulrika? Is Coolio a bully?

I am in two minds about this one. On one hand Coolio’s behaviour has been uncomfortable to watch over the last few days, he has certainly gotten carried away at times. But I also think that Michelle has over reacted massively, especially during the first week of the show. As Tina told her (and I can’t believe I am agreeing with that minger) if she just ignored Coolio or laughed the banter off, he would go away and find someone else to tease. Michelle is loving playing the role of delicate young girl, but even her soon to be ex-husband thinks its a farce.

So do you think that Coolio is a bully? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so leave your comments below or pop in for a chat on our forum.

Terry Christian and Coolio have become thick as thieves in the Celebrity Big brother house, especially now that they have discovered neither of them are up for eviction this week.

Last night the pair sat in the garden ashtray and bitched about the lack of food in the house and about those who drew up this weeks shopping list.

“It was almost like nobody had done any fucking shopping for five years,” Terry complained.

He remembered the housemates shouting over one another:

“I want this, I want that, and you are thinking like ‘great, but don’t complain when everything runs out’. I can’t believe we didn’t get cooking oil, I can’t believe we didn’t get margarine instead of butter. Everyone is flinging ingredients, left, right and centre.”

Of course Coolio knew a better way to tackle the task, he replied

“We are going to be here until at least next week. Straight up, they don’t want to listen to me, so you are going to have to do it. You are going to have to step up. You have to be diplomatic about it man. You say, ‘Listen, we tried it your way last week, lets try something different’.”

For this week’s shopping task the Celebrity Big Brother housemates must become toys.

The task will consist of 7 separate challenges, each related to a different aspect of childrens toys.

The group as a whole must fail no more than two challenges in order to pass this week’s shopping task.

Big Brother has allocated the following roles to the following housemates.

TOY PIANO PLAYERS

La Toya and Mutya must learn to play a piece of music on a giant piano. To pass the challenge, they must provide a note perfect performance tomorrow.

TEDDY BEARS PICNIC

Verne and Michelle must become teddy bears for the duration of the task and will be provided with a picnic.

NATIVE AMERICAN TOY

Ulrika will become a native American warrior. To pass the task she must learn how to fire a bow and arrow accurately.

TOY DINOSAUR

For his challenge Ben must become a dinosaur. His challenge will take place tomorrow.

TOY RACE CARS

Coolio and Tommy must become toy racing drivers and must keep their cars clean and maintained at all times.

MUSIC BALLERINA DANCERS

Tina and Terry must show their natural grace and elegance by becoming ballet dancers on a music box.

GROUP TASK

In addition to their individual tasks housemates must take part in a group challenge. Over the course of today and tomorrow, a group of children will make numerous visits to the Big Brother house. Big Brother will play a trigger sound. Upon hearing this, all housemates have one minute to get into a toy box in the living area and stand perfectly still until all the children have left the house.

Housemates have been informed of the task and the task is currently going out live on streaming, E4, highlights of which to be shown in tomorrow nights show.