By "I'm s**tting my pants!" It's fair to say Harriet Jackson is feeling a little bit apprehensive about joining Big Brother on Tuesday's launch night - after all, she only entered as a joke when her friend Gemma Clarke (from the band Babyshambles) dared her to record a video outside Chloe Goodman's eviction. "The game's gone really far!" Harriet joked when we spoke to her at the contestants' secret hotel.
But she is indeed about to head into the house, so we sat down with Harriet to chat about her supposed support of UKIP (she doesn't like them any more), her free and easy attitude to flatulence, bitchy girls and much more...
1. Harriet isn't worried if people don't like her.
"You've got to keep reminding yourself that it's just a game," she said. "These people are not my friends. I've got my family, my friends, but let people say what they've got to say about me because not everyone's going to like everyone. People are going to slag me off but I've had it my whole life so it don't matter."
She has? "Yeah, because girls are just bitchy, aren't they? Jealous. I can't be bothered with it no more - I've got to a stage in my life where I'm like, 'Go on, crack on'." She does have female friends, though: "Most of my girl mates are like boys - it's just easier! We're not worried about hair, we're not worried about makeup - I don't really give a s**t to be honest, I'm just laid back. Well, I'm not really!"
2. Harriet just wants you to be honest.
What gets her angry? "If people can't say what they feel to me," she said. "If I'm pissed off with someone, I'll say, 'You're getting on my nerves' or, 'You're irritating, go away'. And I'll say it like, 'Ugh, go away from me, you're irritating me'. I don't mean to be rude - it's just my way of saying, 'F**k off!' But lies and sneakiness - I can't stand it because I'm not sneaky."
And she'll call people out in the house - to a certain extent. "Obviously I don't want to get involved in everyone's row - that's your problem, if you can't deal with it," she said. "But if I see someone getting singled out, I will say something because I don't like things like that. I wouldn't like it. My mum would go sick at me thinking, 'Harriet, why are you not helping that person out?' Because that's how I've been brought up. My mum said, 'Imagine if that happened to you, and their mum and dad are sitting at home thinking, 'Argh, they're all being left out''. She'd be pissed off with me!"
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3. Harriet didn't think she'd make it into the house after going to the London auditions.
"I saw some dude walking around in high heels, for f**k's sake," she said. "And they were asking me all these questions in a big group, and I said, 'Listen mate - I'm just a normal person from Enfield. I know these people have got lovely stories, but I feel like I haven't got a sob story to go by'. Someone was like, 'I got over cancer' and I started crying like, 'This is f**king beautiful!' And one geezer had HIV - I thought, 'F**king hell! Well done my son'. I was sitting there crying and then they got to me and I was like, 'I don't have nothing to say, sorry!' I'm just a girl."
4. Harriet has no time for gossip.
"I don't want to sit in the corner and go, 'Really! Oh my God!'" she said. "'I'll tell it for you then, yeah?' That's what I'll say to them. 'You ain't got the arsehole to say it? I'll go and say it for you'. Look, so-and-so just said this to me, deal with it." Incidentally, she admits that people have told her she's "intimidating". "I don't know why," she said. "I don't think I am. Are you having a laugh? I'm five foot nothing. But I think it's just my big personality. That's why - and I'm loud. And I think people think, 'Oh, mouthy little Essex bird'."
5. Harriet - who has been with her boyfriend Bill for three years - isn't worried about what her exes might say.
"I don't even care," she said. "They'll be hating. If you're going to go and sell a story on me, have the hundred quid, mate, because that's all you're going to get. They're probably that thick that they wouldn't even negotiate money with you." She added: "Everything happens for a reason, and that's why I'm here now. The reason I'm with my boyfriend now is through my ex-boyfriend, so it all comes to one. And now he gon' be hatin'! I can't wait. That's my revenge. This is it. I've always kept my mouth shut - my mum always says, 'Silence is golden, you'll have your time one day'. This is it now. I'm going to go, 'Wheey! You should have stayed with me!'"
In fact, Harriet says all her ex-boyfriends have been "knobs": "That's why they don't stay. So far so good with my Bill. I like him, he's a nice boy.
If I was with my ex now, he wouldn't have allowed me to do something like this. Bill allows me to be myself. I'm a free spirit - don't try and control me. I said to Bill, 'I am doing this - if you don't want to be with me, don't be with me, but you know I'm a good girl'. I said, 'This is for me and you - if anything should come of it, I'm not going to leave you behind'."
6. Harriet said in her Channel 5 biography that she was considering voting for UKIP... but she's not a fan any more.
"I didn't even go and vote in the end," she said. "I was watching them all, all on the telly, and I thought, 'Oh, you know what, one of you wankers is going to f**k up the country anyway, so bollocks to the vote, I can't even be bothered'. I stopped following them and went, 'Mum, it's a load of crap'. We're not going to be happy with everything. UKIP kept finding out tax things - you've been scamming everyone for tax. I don't support none of them, to be fair. Let them get on with it." And she's not up for people talking politics in the house. "I'll just say to them, 'Go and sign up to be a president somewhere if you want to go talk about that crap'. Let's have some fun. I don't want to sit and be all serious."
7. Harriet doesn't think you can predict what will do well with the public.
"I've learnt from past series that quite bitchy people can win as well," she said. "It's weird, isn't it? I don't know where you stand in it. You just hope for the best. I've got no agenda, no anything like that. I just want to go in there, be myself, have a laugh, and if nothing comes of it then sweet. It doesn't bother me." And no, she doesn't have any tactics. "I'm not going to sit at home and write a poxy game plan. I've got to go to work, man."
8. Harriet thinks she's "common".
"Yeah, really common!" she laughed. "Don't you think I'm common? My voice! I am. I am. Honestly, when I've gone for a job and that, I think they've given me one look and gone, 'Yeah, f**k off. Loudmouth little girl'." But that doesn't bother her. "Say what you like. You don't know me. See, I work in a caff and all. That's common, isn't it? It ain't no Ritz."
9. Harriet is not looking forward to showmances in the house.
"If they want to do it, they want to do it, but I do think it's all for telly, because half of them don't last. I personally wouldn't, because I think it's really cringey. I can't stand it if people are having sex - no, that's got to stop. Stop it. I believe that s**t is private - even a snog. Sitting there snogging in the corner - you know what a snog leads to! I'm just picturing it in my head, 'Go away'. The boys [I live with] have had girls in the house before and I've told them to leave. I said, 'This ain't no whorehouse - get out'."
10. Harriet really isn't embarrassed about anything.
She admitted that she's "terrible" about picking her nose, but explained that she's not really embarrassed about anything - apart from maybe when she had a little accident: "I s**t myself once. That was not good, but I was in the comfort of my own home and no-one was with me. But it was still embarrassing. My sister knows - I'm sure she's told some people, because I was on the phone to her. I said, 'I just s**t myself!' She went, 'Over what?' And I went, 'No, literally'."
Other than that, though? Harriet admitted that she'll "fart in front of anyone": "You've got to let it go, haven't you? You've got to get it out. I just say to people, 'Look, I get a really bad belly if I don't, and you don't want to see me with a bad belly because you've got to go in that toilet after me, so let me fart away'." And going to the toilet on camera isn't an issue for her.
"Obviously, shaving my nunny and things like that, that's embarrassing," she said. "That might be really weird. But having a poo and that, I'll go, 'I'm having a poo!' to the camera. Everyone s**ts, sleeps and eats." And she won't have time for people who are precious about it, either. "I'll go, 'Shut up and s**t, you've got to have a s**t'," she joked. "You can't not have a poo for three months. You'll be ill. Go for a poo. I might have to have a little sit down and talk to them. 'Okay, you can do it'. Like an AA meeting for s**t!"
Big Brother kicks off on Tuesday (May 12) at 9pm on Channel 5.
