Big Brother star reveals she was suffering from chronic illness during ‘painful’ challenge

Evicted Big Brother star Daze Aghaji has recalled suffering from chronic illness during her time on the show, and particularly during a gruelling few hours before she’d even entered the main house.

The climate activist became the second housemate to be voted out, after building a close friendship with fellow contestant Lily, and managing to win one of the first challenges by keeping her arm in the air for three hours.

Viewers were devastated when Daze was booted out the house, claiming she was ‘robbed’, however, the 24-year-old Londoner has now explained that after recently being diagnosed with a chronic illness and coping with an ‘unusual’ symptom in the house, she didn’t want to put her health further at risk and was ready to go.

In a chat with Metro, Daze revealed she was diagnosed with long-Covid in 2020, which ‘set off a whole load of strange autoimmune issues that have all started to interlink.’

She went on: ‘And just before going in the house, I’d been having these really bad ankle pains and on all my joints, and that’s when I found out through some blood tests and the inflammatory markers that I have rheumatoid arthritis.’

Daze shared that it had been the medics for Big Brother who had told her of the diagnosis, as they’d received her medical records before she had.

‘It’s one of those things that I’m now learning to deal with,’ she said.

Big Brother star Daze has opened up about suffering from her chronic illness (Picture: Shutterstock for Big Brother)

‘With autoimmune stuff, you never really know what it is, it’s very much like you get a diagnosis and then it changes, or they think you might have something else and that changes.

‘Living with chronic illness is interesting because it teaches you how to be in a different way, and especially in the context of the house, it really put into perspective what I hold dear, and one thing I hold very dear is my health.’

Linked to her immune health, Daze suffers from an oral allergy syndrome which unexpectedly flared while she was in the house.

She recalled: ‘I had one day where I got a massive rash on my arm from cutting a carrot, which is very unusual and never happened to me.’

The medical scare made her question whether she was willing to ‘risk’ her health. ‘I realised, I just wasn’t,’ she said.

Daze was the second housemate evicted from Big Brother (Picture: Sofi Adams/Shutterstock for Big)

Daze continued: ‘This is the thing with chronic illness, you have resilience up to a level and then it just plummets and especially with the years of long-Covid and not knowing what’s wrong with me and not having much scientific research around what I should do better, you never want to get to the point of where the resilience is worn and that you’re looking at yourself like, “I could have stopped myself from this situation.”‘

One of the first challenges in the house saw Daze up against Lily and Emma and half her housemates to hold her hand in the air for the longest.

They managed to keep it there for hours, with Daze ultimately convincing Lily that she would reward her if she took her hand down first – not realising that they would all be treated to a bed to sleep on and hot water anyway.

At the time, Daze had vowed she’d rather ‘go home’ than sleep without a bed for another night.

Recalling the gruelling task, she said: ‘With the arm challenge, at first I put my hand up, and I was like, “oh god, I really want to get out of here,” and I do not know where I got the mental strength and the physical strength to have my hand in the air for almost three hours, I do not know where I got it from, it was quite surprising to me.

Daze and Lily became close friends (Picture: Shutterstock for Big Brother)

‘But then there was a point in the process of where I wanted to put my hand down, and I started moving my hand, and it was actually more painful trying to put my hand down than it was keeping it up.

‘And at that point, I kind of was like, “I’ve reached the point of no return. Therefore, if I don’t get a bed tonight, this is going to be horrendous.” By the end, that was the thing that kept me going.

‘I was like, I know that now I’ve f**ked it a little, so like if I put my hand down and I lose this and have to sleep on the floor, it’s going to be one of the worst nights of my life.

‘And that’s when I was like, “yeah, I need to find a way to win.”‘

Talking about ‘struggling’ in the challenge, Daze had earlier said on Late and Live: ‘Most people didn’t know that I actually have chronic illness, and I have rheumatoid arthritis so I was really worried about the harm that I was putting on my body by sleeping on the floor.’

Reflecting on her experience in the house, Daze elsewhere told us: ‘It was amazing, but it was also really hard, and also really insightful and really reflective.’

‘Interesting is the only word I can use to describe the experience,’ she added.

Speaking about being nominated, Daze went on to say she wasn’t ‘surprised’ but admitted feeling ‘miffed’ when she didn’t know why some housemates put her name forward.

‘Everyone seemed overly nice at certain points, and then it was like the day of nominations, the next morning, no one can look you in the eye.

‘It’s really awkward, because I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, and not even having the space to give a reply or confront things that people thought of you that might not be true, I found that really challenging.

‘I’m one of those people that if there’s a problem I want to talk it out, and not having the space to be able to do that was quite challenging to live with.’

Daze admitted she was ‘naïve’ to think the housemates would be ‘playing fair’ (Picture: Vianney Le Caer/Shutterstock)

Daze did however admit there were moments throughout her two weeks on the show that she felt she may not make it until the end.

‘I was having moments of where I was asking myself, “can I handle this?” And I think the answer was probably not for the longevity of the end of the program.’

Talking about ‘game players’ on the programme, after receiving some surprise nominations, Daze added: ‘I guess I went into it quite naïve thinking that, yes, it’s a game, but everyone’s playing fair, right?

‘And I guess people aren’t playing fair, and I kind of realized that just a little too late.’

Big Brother continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2.

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