Revealed: Ex-Conservative MP is about to enter the Celebrity Big Brother home after touchdown an enormous six-figure deal

He’s one of the more colourful MPs to grace Westminster, and often found himself at the centre of many a political controversy.

And now former Conservative politician Sir Michael Fabricant has signed up to appear on Celebrity Big Brother which begins next month on ITV.

He is understood to have signed a lucrative six-figure deal to take part after political stars were banned from the broadcaster’s other reality show, I’m A Celeb.

The Mail can reveal that network bosses are ‘excited’ at him agreeing to take part in the reality series, with one source saying: ‘He doesn’t hold back, he’s going to be compulsive viewing, we can’t wait.

‘We wanted a top politician but one with enormous personality which would entertain the viewers.

‘He recently lost his seat so was available, already the execs are excited that he will be a star of the series.

Former Conservative politician Sir Michael Fabricant, 74, has signed up to appear on Celebrity Big Brother which begins next month on ITV

‘Michael is not only instantly recognisable but also is so likely to say the wrong thing, start some debates and really ramp things up in the house.’

Mr Fabricant, 74, served as MP for Lichfield in Staffordshire from 1992 until his defeat in 2024 as well as vice-chairman of the Conservative Party under David Cameron but he is perhaps known best for his blonde mop of hair for which he has been widely ridiculed but has repeatedly denied that it is a wig.

Celebrity Big Brother, which begins on April 7, is not Mr Fabricant’s first foray into reality television, he starred on Channel 4’s First Dates: Celebrity Special for Stand Up To Cancer in 2017.

It saw the then MP paired for a date with 61-year-old fantasy novelist Jan, who immediately jumped on the subject of his colourful hair and said he needed to ditch what she assumed was his wig.

‘Aggressive, unpleasant and mean,’ were some of the kinder comments he called Jan.

Mr Fabricant was one of the most controversial politicians in the last Tory government.

In 2022, he was criticised for a tweet relating to the arrest of another MP accused of rape and sexual assault.

Tory whips told the unnamed MP to stay away from Parliament while police carry out their inquiry but Mr Fabricant tweeted there would be a ‘strong turnout’ of MPs to ‘prove they are not the one told by the chief whip to stay at home’ – a comment which Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner called ‘grotesque’.

In 2016 he was forced to apologise after shouting out ‘b******’ loudly in the Commons chamber as MPs discussed the EU referendum, while during lockdown he was lambasted for saying that teachers and nurses enjoyed ‘quiet drinks’ in their staff rooms.

Mr Fabricant also once revealed that he had used sex drugs poppers amid the government’s considerations to ban them as part of a crackdown on legal highs.

Mr Fabricant is openly bisexual and has spoken in the past of how close he is to former Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street – who is described as his ‘life partner’.

He said: ‘We’ve got a place together in Wales because we both like walking. We go on holidays together, and we’re, you know, we’re very, very close.

‘But we lead separate lives. If we lived together all the time, I think we’d murder each other.

‘There’s something special, but I’m not quite sure what it is. One of those indefinable little things.’

Mr Fabricant will be joined by Coronation Street actor Jack P Shepherd and Love Island contestant Chris Hughes, among other stars when the show begins later this month.