In scenes that aired on April 13, Ella said: “Mickey, you’ve got to come with me,” and he replied: “Come in you?” 

“That is not OK, and it’s driving me mad,” actor Patsy Palmer said about his comment later that day. “And it’s not funny. In what world is any of that stuff funny?”

Actor Donna Preston and TV presenter Angelica Bell felt the same way, with Donna saying about Mickey: “It’s made me quite sad, that. I don’t have any respect [for Mickey] at all, at all now,” and Angelica fought back tears as she said: “It does affect us all.”

“It’s fucked up this shit,” Donna agreed. “It’s causing a weird place, I don’t like it.”

When Mickey was called to the Diary Room, he had no recollection of the comment he made to Ella, and when quizzed on his behavior with Chris, he admitted: “I stepped over the line and I take responsibility for doing the wrong thing because I lost my temper. And I’ve been trying to work on it my whole life, and I wish I would have had better self-control.”

“I’m very sorry, I’m ashamed of myself for losing it for a few seconds there,” he went on. “Nobody got touched or hurt, maybe some feelings got hurt, or maybe others have feelings about someone getting upset, but I’m sorry about that.”

And when Big Brother said they had “no option” but to ask him to leave the house, Mickey understood — and even said that he’d wanted to go the previous day when he was up for eviction, but did not get voted out of the house.