Celebrity Big Brother’s Ashley James consoled transgender India Willoughby after she got upset during a discussion about dating, telling her: “Love is greater than a label.”
Willoughby, 52, stormed off when singer Ginuwine said he would not date a transgender person.
The newsreader had already had stern words with some of her fellow contestants on the Channel 5 show when they accidentally referred to her as “he”.
A new clip shared ahead of Sunday night’s programme shows James, 30, assuring Willoughby: “I think you’d be surprised at how many of us think of you as a woman and not as trans.”
Willoughby said she was “not sure”, but James went on: “I can’t speak for the whole house, but a lot of us do but when you open the narrative around trans, we ask questions and I’d hate to ask anything ignorant.
“But if you open the conversation and people are trying to understand without malice, you can try and get people to understand or be like, ‘Do you know what? I can’t talk about it’.
“Because if someone asked me the question like directly, would I date someone trans? I don’t know. I couldn’t answer because I don’t… who’s trans? So you know what I mean? In the same way that if you say to me, do I go out with brunettes, blonds? I couldn’t answer it. It depends on the individual.
“If I met a trans person and I fell in love with them, of course I’d, it wouldn’t bother me.”
“Like, love for me is greater than a label,” added the presenter.
:: Celebrity Big Brother airs at 9pm on Channel 5.