Big Brother victor Richard Storry on criticism, temptation and reading Psalms in the toilet

After being crowned the winner of Big Brother 2025, Richard Storry walked through the door donning the famous Big Brother eye into the fireworks and cheers awaiting him — and no one appeared more surprised than he was.

In fact, as he freely admits, he only entered the show on a whim.

Watching the final episode of the previous series, he saw the call for applications flash up on screen and without a moment of planning or even common sense (as he put it), he clicked the link, filled in the form, and immediately thought, “You stupid twit. What have you just gone and done?”

Convinced he was far too old and ordinary to be chosen, he forgot all about it, until months later when an unexpected email arrived asking whether he was still interested.

Softly-spoken, thoughtful and quietly grounded in his Christian faith, Richard hadn’t expected to stay beyond the intital stages of the show surrounded by presumably younger, louder, more attention-grabbing personalities.

Gentle conversations with housemates revealed his quirky, wholesome nature while isolated early-morning readings from a tiny book of Psalms helped keep him steady. That stood out amid the cultivated chaos of reality TV.

From his introduction in the second episode to his crowning in the 48th, he proved a contestant that unexpectedly but equally understandably gained the favour of the nation watching.

In this conversation, Richard reflects on the scriptures that spoke to him at just the right moments, the ways his faith touched his fellow housemates, and the possibility that God may be using his appearance on the British cultural classic for something greater.

How did you feel in the moment you won the whole show?

I’ve since looked back at the footage, and I think my face said it all. My chin hit the floor. I just wasn’t expecting to win. I really thought that the oldies of whom I was one would be voted out very close to the beginning. So the fact that I stayed in any longer than that was a miracle. And then to go on and win was just extraordinary.

How did you handle the pressure of reality tv? Did your faith help?

The faith question is an interesting one, because before we went in, we had all these rules and regulations thrown at us, and one of them was that we’re not allowed to take in any books, magazines or anything like that, nothing to read, with the exception of a religious text. That was the one thing that you were allowed to take in.

So what I took in with me was a little book of Psalms. And because I woke up ages before everybody else, I would just leave all the sleeping beauties in the bedroom, and I’d go into the bathroom, and just sit there and read that for a little while. Although I wasn’t being particularly overt about it, inevitably people began to notice, and that’s where it started from.

I suppose to my shame, I didn’t go in there Bible bashing or trying to convert the world. But it all happened organically. One by one, they started saying, “Can I have a read of it?”

As you went through the process, did you feel a sense of God saying go for it?

I did. Because there were quite a lot of stop-start moments at various points along the way, particularly through the audition process.

I was asking myself, do I really want to go ahead with this? I could just walk away and no one would ever mind. In fact, it got as far as my receiving an email at the end of the audition process where they said, “Thank you ever so much. It’s all been wonderful, but on this occasion, we’ve decided not to accept you. However, please consider applying again in the future.” And that was that.

Then subsequent to that, they contacted me again and said, “Would you like to do it?”

There were so many times when it almost didn’t happen, but then it did, then it didn’t, then it did, and look how it’s turned out. So yes, retrospectively, I think maybe the man upstairs did have a part to play in it.

Did you feel God speaking to you through the psalms you were reading?

Oh, yes. Sometimes you can be reading something that you’ve read many times before, and on that particular occasion, something just leaps off the page at you in 3D letters, and it’s just what you needed to hear at that moment. There were several occasions like that.

I was reading from The Message, where it’s all written in very up to date, contemporary language. And there was one day when there’d been a huge number of insults hurled at me the day before. I turned to the next page, and the first words it said, “Fear nothing. He is always with you.”

That was just what I needed right then. I wasn’t losing sleep over all these things that were being said, but it was so reassuring to know that there’s someone there with you who’s able to control everything much more effectively than I could do myself.

You really felt that was God speaking to you, encouraging you to let it wash over you.

Yes. And not only that, but Tate, the Scottish fellow who was in there with me, was the one who was most interested, and he started to ask me questions. I started getting these little scriptures dropping into my mind personally for him, I’d say, “Listen, have a look at this one.”

He was reading those, and that was touching him. He, by his own admission, isn’t even a Christian yet. He’s just interested to explore it and read what it’s all about. So that was that really was getting through to him, and we’ve since been in touch numerous times since we both left the house.

You weren’t trying to play the game. You just wanted to be there. Has God used that?

I hope so. I gather that in the Bake-Off show that the winner of that was a Christian as well. And when you tie that in with what we’re seeing in the news — this thing they’re calling ‘the quiet revival’, the way the world and the country is at the moment we really do need all the hope and reassurance we can get.

And in the back of my mind, I’m allowing myself a tiny bit of luxury to wonder whether, actually, there’s a bit more to it than just Richard Storry winning a game show. I wonder whether there might be a bigger plan at work here, and I jolly well hope there is.

What would your advice be to any other Christians thinking of applying for any reality TV shows? Is it a good idea to do it?

I don’t know that I could ever, in good conscience, advise anyone to do such a thing, because they do contain a lot of unwholesome things.

There were a lot of things in there that were not edifying, and I hope I was able to sort of balance the scales a bit where that’s concerned.

I would think that for new Christians it may not be a wise thing to do, because there’s going to be a lot of pressure from other people to conform. When I was in there, it was difficult to not join in with party games that had sordid elements to them. It was difficult not to join in when people were drinking to excess.

But thankfully, I’m reasonably aged now and I was able to withstand it, but maybe some people wouldn’t, so I can’t make a blanket statement and say, Oh yes, go for it.

I would simply say this, if you are feeling the inclination to do it, first thing, of course, is pray about it, seek the advice of your other church friends, your pastor, your vicar. Get some wisdom on it first before you go for it.

And if the consensus is, give it a try, then yes, do go for it.

Who knows, you might even carry it off. When I was in the audition process, they directly asked me, “Do you think you can win it?” And I said, “Well, it’s an outside chance, being this age, but you just never know.” And hey, look how it’s turned out. Anything is possible.

Richard Storry was speaking to Esther Higham