Ofcom confirmed last night that it is beginning a full investigation into 'Celebrity Big Brother', specifically focusing in on the Roxanne Pallett / Ryan Thomas incident in August.
That incident sparked over 21,000 complaints to the UK's Office Of Communications on that incident alone, whilst a further 3,747 formal complaints were made against the show following the incident. Much of the complaints focused on Roxanne Pallett's accusation of physical abuse by Ryan Thomas, whilst others believed it trivialised domestic abuse.
The fallout of the incident for both Pallett and Thomas, however, was far more pointed - Pallett would go on to quit many of her media commitments whilst Thomas eventually won the competition for this year's edition. Pallett later apologised for the accusations, saying that she "overreacted" and "got it totally wrong," after which Thomas said that he's forgiven her.
A statement from Ofcom said that it had begun an investigation into the reality TV show to see "whether this programme broke our rules on offensive content", but stopped short of specifying the nature of the investigation and the ramifications if they're found guilty. Currently, 'Celebrity Big Brother' is without a television channel and the likelihood is that the series has finally come to an end after twenty years on air.
Undoubtedly, this year was by far the most controversial in the two decades since it began.