She is proving to be one of the most popular celebrities taking part in this year’s Celebrity Big Brother.
But White Dee’s involvement in the show was not 100% confirmed until the day she entered the house, due to her manager’s fears over her mental health.
Barry Tomes, who has worked with Dee for the last six months , told the Mirror that the show's bosses knew she could pull out at any moment and her involvement was dependant on them making sure she took her anti-depressants daily.
And surprisingly Dee, real name Deirdre Kelly , wasn’t keen on entering the competition and it took months to make sure she was mentally in the right place to participate.
Her manager said: “She didn’t want to do it at all and I didn’t think she would do it. I didn’t think she would do it, I didn’t think she was well enough because the depression is serious.”
“We can be laughing and joking- for example recently we were in the studio recording the song and having an amazing day with the band and that night she was booked to do BBC news night,” he revealed.
Scroll down to watch her manager Barry Tomes talk about her depression
“It was 3 o’clock, we’re going to have some dinner and then we’ve off to London BAM, depression kicked in and we had to cancel it. A live BBC show, you want to be on it but we had to cancel it because the depression just kicked it. You know why? She didn’t take her medication.”
Not surprisingly Barry, who has worked alongside the likes of Lulu in the past, was concerned about how she would cope in the house but he was placated by the Big Brother bosses.
He admitted: “I was most concerned about how would she cope and they were brilliant, their duty of care is brilliant.
“I met them four months before and told them my fears, worries and I said right up until the day she goes through those doors, I might pull her out.
“Of course it’s a worry but I said if she doesn’t look well or if she’s not coping before she goes in they I will do, it’s not about money. It’s a lot of money but you can earn a lot of money doing lots of things.”
In the build up to entering the house Barry gradually eased her into working life, while ensuring she was taking the right medication as well as seeing an appropriate counsellor.
Dee, who hails from Birmingham, initially struggled with travelling to London.
Barry said: “She didn’t even want to leave Birmingham to go into a car to London, that was too far. She was like ‘all the way to London for an interview, I can’t do that’ and I thought if she can’t do that.
“She hated the flying, she hated being away from the kids but it was the first step of teaching her ‘look, we all have to miss our kids, we all have to miss our home comforts, it’s called getting a job’.
“I think I pulled her kicking and screaming for about three months, still not really wanting to do it.”
During Dee’s time in the house so far she has managed to sway public opinion somewhat – when she first started she was still considered simply a ‘benefit scrounger’.
Her history of being on benefits and her long period of unemployment is something Barry was more than happy to discuss.
“She’s not a scrounger. She claimed benefits legitimately. She had a medical condition,” he defiantly said.
“As soon as she started earning money and we got her medication right and got the right counsellors for her. We were able to ease her into work, stop getting benefits.”
He added: “When we first met her she was suffering from depression, she wasn’t taking her medication regularly. She went to the doctors and he prescribed her, nobody talked about counselling, no one said ‘every journey starts with a step’. Let’s step outside the house today.”
And her latest step certainly seems to be in the right direction, judging by the public positive reaction to her in the house.
Barry is also pleased with how it’s going but that doesn’t mean that if there’s a change in her behaviour he won’t take her out.
“My first impression is she’s loving it. I also told them that if I see a sign that isn’t a good sign, I will be ringing them and getting them to pull her out,” he warned.
