Helen Adams and Paul Clarke, the first couple to fall in love on British reality TV, are remembered 25 years after Big Brother 2 made television history. Their romance, which began in the house in 2001, lasted five years after the cameras stopped rolling before the pair parted ways in 2006.
Helen, a 22-year-old Welsh hairdresser, and 25-year-old Paul quickly connected, and not even the fact that she had a boyfriend when she entered the house could stop the attachment. Gavin Cox, nicknamed Big G, was not enough to scare Paul off.
A romance that began on screen
It was not just a show for the cameras. As soon as the pair returned to civilisation, with Helen the runner-up to Brian Dowling, they made a real go of it after deciding in 2001 that they could not live without each other.
Within weeks, Helen had packed her bags and moved from the valleys to north London, where she and Paul shared a flat together in Barnet. The pair were offered their own fly-on-the-wall TV series, but they turned it down to focus on their life together.
The split and its reasons
The former lovebirds eventually bought a house together, and Helen appeared on shows including Loose Women and Ready, Steady, Cook. However, while her career thrived, her relationship with Paul started to crumble. The pair parted ways in 2006, blaming the demands of fame.
Speaking to Heat magazine at the time, Paul shared: "For the last five years, on a daily basis people have been asking me, 'how's Helen? When are you getting married?' and I've never met these people before in my life. It starts to drain you. It's not that I don't like talking about Helen, I just wanted to get away from it and be a private person again."
He went on to say: "Deep down we know we are making the right decision. We've never had time apart. We need time to find ourselves as people again."
Life after Big Brother
Helen also had her say and told the publication: "I felt like the Wicked Witch because I was first to say something. But then Paul said to me, 'would you want to marry me?' and I said, 'I don't think I would' and he said, 'well, I don't want to marry you either'. And we laughed."
Helen has since returned to her hairdressing roots, while Paul has gone back to work as a car designer. Helen now lives a quiet life in Bristol with her new husband and daughter, preferring to stay out of the spotlight, and has swapped her trademark blonde do for a slightly darker shade. Paul, still based in Berkshire, describes himself as a "passionate forward-thinking individual" on his LinkedIn page.
Series two also starred Stuart Hosking, Josh Rafter, Paul Ferguson aka "Bubble", Penny Ellis, Elizabeth Woodcock, Amma Antwi, Dean O'Loughlin and TV regular Narinder Kaur.
