Rylan Clark-Neal: Sarah Harding was a great CBB housemate

Presenter Rylan Clark-Neal has showered praise on Celebrity Big Brother winner and good friend Sarah Harding, who joined this year’s show following his advice.

He told how the former Girls Aloud star debated over whether or not to appear on the long-running reality programme, before eventually winning the whole series.

But her angry and emotional outbursts while inside the Channel 5 house divided viewers, and many criticised her romance with housemate Chad Johnson.

Once a show contestant himself and now host of spin-off show Big Brother’s Bit On The Side, Clark-Neal told the Press Association: “Sarah’s doing really well, she’s still with Chad, which is lovely to hear.

“I had a good chat with Sarah before she went in, it was very hit-and-miss whether she was going to go in the house, but I said to her, ‘if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it, it’s as simple as that’.

“She took my advice and she did, she walked into the house and whether people love her or hate her, she certainly made an impression.

“She’s a really lovely girl and a good friend of mine. She genuinely showed herself and she fell in love in that house.”

His comments came as he attended the glittering TV Choice Awards at London’s Dorchester Hotel on Monday.

Janet Street-Porter also attended the event with a number of her fellow Loose Women colleagues and described panel shows that allow guests to speak openly about their experiences and current affairs as an “important form of journalism”.

Sharing her philosophy on reality television in general, the former Independent On Sunday editor said: “You only get television that you watch and people watch reality television in their millions.

“I’m sure these things will ebb and flow and that in another 10 years time there’ll be a different kind of television, but at the moment that’s what everybody wants.”