'Love me or hate me – I don’t care': Katie Hopkins, Celebrity Big Brother and the destruction of a negative image

This article aims to analyse the appearance of controversial British columnist Katie Hopkins on reality television series Celebrity Big Brother. Katie Hopkins made a name for herself as a public figure as a result of attracting public criticism for her harsh views on a range of topics from obesity to welfare reform. This notoriety led to her 2014 appearance on the British edition of Celebrity Big Brother. During Hopkins' time on the series, cracks began to form in her carefully cultivated negative public image; given her relatively unique approach towards courting controversy, this transformation was particularly profound and provoked a number of questions regarding the 'celebreality' genre and its impact on the prominent personalities that become involved.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies on 26/05/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10304312.2016.1186605