Anthony Scaramucci, briefly in the White House, enters the Celebrity Big Brother house instead
- Donald Trump’s former communications director is now a reality TV show contestant
- He is the second alumnus of the Trump administration to take part in Big Brother, after Omarosa Manigault Newman
Anthony Scaramucci’s time as White House communications director lasted just 10 days, but the career as a TV-personality-for-hire he has built off the back of it is now well into its second year.
Not content with being evicted from one famous house after less than two weeks, Scaramucci has been announced as a contestant on the next series of Big Brother: Celebrity Edition.
He will be joined by Lindsay Lohan’s mother, wrestler Eva Marie and Kato Kaelin, whose fame is almost entirely derived from being a key witness in the OJ Simpson trial, having stayed at Simpson’s home on the night of the murder.
Since leaving the Trump administration Scaramucci, known as the Mooch, has set up his own news site, the Scarramucci Post. Shortly after launch, the site made headlines for running a poll asking how many Jews died in the Holocaust.
Trump fires Scaramucci as communications director, after insisting ‘no WH chaos!’
A glance shows it currently consists of five articles, all penned by Scaramucci. Its social media accounts are still active.
He also launched a radio show, Mooch and the Mrs, with his wife Deidre, and makes regular appearances on the comedy baseball podcast Pardon My Take.
He was heavily rumoured to be shopping his own reality series and refused to appear on the 2017 edition of Big Brother. In an interview this week, Big Brother host Julie Chen claimed Scaramucci changed his mind after seeing the impact Omarosa Manigault Newman, another former White House staffer, made on the show.
Omarosa spent much of her time in the Big Brother house gossiping about the president, saying he sent tweets “in his underwear”.
She used the appearance on the show to help launch her tell-all book Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House, which gave her further headlines.
Chen will be making her first major appearance on CBS since leaving the network’s chat show The Talk. Chen announced her departure after her husband, Les Moonves, resigned as chief executive of CBS amid allegations of sexual harassment.
Read Scaramucci’s old tweets and you’ll understand why he deleted some of them
Also competing this year are swimmer Ryan Lochte and Joey Lawrence, the actor who played Aaron Samuels in Mean Girls and recently reprised the role in Ariana Grande’s Thank You, Next video.
The contestants will be competing for a US$250,000 prize. CBS have made clear the winner will pocket the cash, rather than it going to charity as in some celebrity formats.
