Craig Phillips

Craig Phillips
Housemate Profile
Gender:	Male
Age:	52
Hometown:	Liverpool, Merseyside
Occupation:	Builder
Big Brother 1
Entered:	Day 1
Exited:	Day 64
Status:	Winner
Nomination(s) Received:	20
Times Faced Eviction:	4

Craig Philips was a housemate in Big Brother 1. He entered the House on Day 1 and was crowned as the winner on Day 64.

Profile

Craig, the younger of two children, his family moved to Shropshire in the late 1980s. Craig's dad was killed in a car crash when he was 13 and since then he has looked after his mum, sister and three dogs.

After leaving school at 15 he went to work in a butcher's shop and at 18, Craig secured a day release bricklayers apprenticeship whilst employed with Wrekin Councils construction department.

Craig set up his own building company, and also hires out marquee's for functions and special events. Previously he has worked his way up to managerial level in a butcher's shop in Liverpool.

He describes his good traits as straight forward, confident, talkative, leadership, committed and not self-conscious and his bad traits as argumentative, sleep walker, speaks before he thinks, show off, tries to be the loudest in the group, flauntinng himself and flirting.

Craig finds untidiness in others annoying and hates liars. Craig likes most chart music but hates heavy metal. His favourite artistes are Oasis, Robbie Williams, Texas, Sheryl Crow and Rod Stewart.

He loves Pasta, Chinese, Sweets, Roasts but highly dislikes hot curries. He's into body building and Thai boxing. Craig loves kids and in ten years time he sees himself settled with a family.

Big Brother 1

Craig was nominated against Nichola on Day 32 in the House, receiving four nomination votes from his fellow housemates. He survived the eviction, however, only receiving 18% of the public vote to evict. Craig was nominated against Anna, Darren and Tom on Day 39 in the House, receiving two nomination votes from his fellow housemates. He survived the eviction. On Day 46, Craig was nominated for a third time, this time against Claire. He received three nomination votes that week. On Day 50, it was announced he had survived this eviction as well, and had only received 11% of the public vote to evict. He was nominated again on Day 53 against Darren and Melanie, receiving two votes that week. He survived the eviction, however, only receiving 13% of the public vote to evict. Craig was voted the winner of the series on Day 64, receiving 51% of the public vote against Anna.

Nominations History

Craig's Nominations History
Week		Craig's Nominations	Nominations Against Craig
2		Caroline, Sada	Melanie
3		Caroline, Nichola	Melanie, Nichola, Nick
4		Caroline, Nichola	Anna, Darren
5		Darren, Nichola	Anna, Darren, Nichola, Nick
6		Darren, Anna	Darren, Melanie
7	Round 1	Darren, Anna	Anna, Darren, Melanie
	Round 2	Darren, Anna	Anna, Darren, Melanie
8		Darren, Melanie	Anna, Melanie
Winner, Day 64

Post-Big Brother

After leaving the House as its first winner, Phillips announced he was giving his £70,000 prize fund to his friend Joanne Harris, who had Down syndrome, to pay for her heart and lung transplant. He had begun raising money with friends for Harris sometime before entering Big Brother, raising only small amounts of money towards the £250,000 needed for her operation in the USA, but within 6 days of winning he achieved the target required for her life saving operation thanks to public support and generous donations from celebrities. Harris died in April 2008.

He has featured in comedy series Bo' Selecta! and appeared in the reality TV series, Back To Reality raising £40,000 for Macmillan Cancer Trust.

At Christmas 2000, Phillips released the charity single, "At This Time of Year" with Warner Music. The single went to Number 14 in the UK Singles Chart, achieving silver disc status and raising over £40,000 for the Down's Syndrome Association. It stayed in the top 40 for three weeks. Since then he has appeared in videos for two other Xmas singles - "Bo Selectas! Proper Crimbo" which reached No. 4 in 2003 and Ricky Tomlinson's "Xmas My A*se" which reached 25 in 2006.

In the 1990s, before his TV career began, Phillips bought and renovated his first house. He presented Renovation Street with Linda Robson for Carlton ITV before being brought in as the DIY expert for the BBC on an exclusive contract in 2001.

In 2003, Phillips appeared on the fifth series of Fort Boyard.

Phillips has now presented as 'resident expert' on a large number of televisions shows across the globe including Housecall (live daily morning show), BBC 1, Housecall in the Country, BBC 1, Builders Sweat and Tears, BBC 1 & UK Style, Our House, UK Style, Trading Up, BBC 1 & UK Style, Big Strong Boys, BBC 1 & UK Style, Boyz In The Wood (2 x 10 part carpentry series) Discovery Realtime, Big Strong Boys In The Sun (Europe), BBC 1, Renovation Street, ITV1 & Discovery Realtime, Sex and the City (Series 4 - Episode 7 (USA) NBC,Trading Up In The Sun (Europe) BBC 1, House Trap, BBC 1 and Craig’s Trade Tips, BBC 1.

He also has a production company called Avent Productions. For Avent he has presented the programmes Conversion a 10 part series for Discovery Realtime and the sixth series of Hung, Drawn & Quartered, a 6 part series filmed worldwide for British Forces Broadcasting Service. The company also produces corporate productions many of these for building companies.

In 2007 Phillips joined the team of 60 Minute Makeover for ITV1. He completed 80 shows in 2008, the first 40 of these aired in late 2008 with a further 40 airing throughout Spring 2009.

February 2009 saw Phillips appear in Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway in "Escape from Takeaway Prison" for six weeks.

Summer 2009 saw the release of his autobiography with Bantam Press (A division of Transworld). On 29 May 2009, he talked to Petrie Hosken on LBC (London's Biggest Conversation - 97.3 FM) about his time in Big Brother 1 and how lots of wannabe's are now entering Big Brother.

In April 2011, he hosted a show called Celebrity DIY with Craig Phillips for Home. In 2011, he also became an ambassador for Ryobi. In June 2011 he also hosted If It's Broke, Fit It for Home.

Gallery

Craig enters the Big Brother 1 House

Craig dressed in drag doing a pole dance in the Big Brother 1 living area

Craig leaves the Big Brother 1 House as the winner

Trivia

• Craig is the first ever winner of Big Brother.
  • Craig won in the Final vote of Big Brother 1 by the closest percentage margin ever; he beat Anna Nolan by just under 1% of the vote.
• After receiving 20 nominations throughout his stay in the Big Brother 1 House, Craig received more nominations than any other Big Brother 1 housemate.
• After facing the public vote four consecutive times, Craig faced the public vote more times than any other Big Brother 1 housemate.
  • Craig was the first ever Big Brother housemate to face the public vote four times in a row.
• During Big Brother 10, Craig returned to the House to help celebrate the show's tenth anniversary. He competed in a task against one of the current housemates, Freddie Fisher.
  • At first, Craig was not originally chosen to take part in the task; he was a replacement for Nick Bateman who pulled out of doing the appearance due to a payment problem.
• It is believed that Craig was offered to take part on Ultimate Big Brother but declined.
• Craig was one of the fifteen former housemates chosen to feature in the official Ultimate Big Brother promotion poster.
• In 2010, Craig re-entered the House as part of a task to compete against the current housemates building a garden shed in Ultimate Big Brother.
  • Craig was one of the four former Big Brother 1 housemates that entered the Ultimate Big Brother House in order to take part in a task.
    • Craig and Darren Ramsay were the only two former female Big Brother 1 housemates that entered the Ultimate Big Brother House in order to take part in a task.
• In 2010, Craig represented Big Brother 1 in the Big Brother send-off show Dermot's Last Supper.