Feminist icon Germaine Greer, who baffled observers by agreeing to appear in a reality television show, made an equally mysterious decision on Tuesday to quit the programme.
The Australian writer and academic left British show Celebrity Big Brother after five days of being locked in a house with an underwear model, a teenage musician, a drug-loving dancer and the ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone.
”I’m leaving over specific issues, but best for everyone if I don’t discuss them,” Greer told fellow housemates as she packed her suitcase. ”I have a problem with decisions, I make them fast and when I make them, I stick to them.”
Greer (65) is best known for her radical book The Female Eunuch, which provided intellectual fuel for the 1970s women’s movement.
Her decision to join Celebrity Big Brother stunned many. She once categorised contestants in an earlier version of the show as exhibitionists who ”risked the wreck of their pampered egos”.
While a guest of the Big Brother house, Greer clashed with Stallone’s ex-wife Brigitte Nielsen over who should run the kitchen. She also failed in an attempt to persuade fellow housemates to rebel by taking off their clothes and sitting in front of cameras naked.
Channel 4, which broadcasts the show, said in a statement that ”Germaine Greer has decided that she no longer wishes to remain in the Big Brother house, after over four days”. It didn’t give a reason for her departure.
Greer left a day after Sylvester Stallone’s mother, Jackie Stallone, joined the show. Nielsen had not met her former mother-in-law since divorcing the Rocky star in 1987, after 17 months of marriage.
The two were polite to each other, but once the 71-year-old Jackie was out of earshot, Nielsen told fellow housemates: ”I was so happy and now I’m miserable.” — Sapa-AP