They’ve grown close in the Celebrity Big Brother house and now only time will tell whether the on-screen romance between Ricci Guarnaccio and ex-TOWIE babe Lauren Goodger will survive on the outside.
But with the love birds still in the running to make it all the way to the CBB final, we caught up with Ricci’s other reality show housemate, Geordie Shore’s James Tindale, to see whether he thinks it’s the real deal (after all, he has seen a Ricci in-house romance before).
Speaking exclusively to heat, at Charlotte Crosby’s InTheStyle clothing launch, James told us: “I’ve seen quite a few of them, I think he’s doing well. It’s Ricci isn’t it? He falls in love doesn’t he? He’s always been like that to me. He’s like ‘I’m going to go in there and have a good time’ and he always ends up falling in love, he’s generally just a nice lad. I’ve never met Lauren, I don’t know what she’s like but hopefully she will like him just as much.”
And having already shared a house with Ricci before, James told us: “CBB is similar to Geordie Shore, if you’re in a house and you with someone 24/7, waking up to them every morning and seeing them every single night, things move a lot quicker don’t they? So a couple of nights in there would be three or four weeks in the outside world but she must have something about her that he likes, she must have. He’s being his true self in there.”
Ricci’s ex-fiancée is Geordie Shore’s Vicky Pattison. They were engaged at the end of series 3, with Vicky calling it off by March 2013. Their on-off relationship featured plenty of fiery rows and Ricci was thrown out of the Geordie Shore house for arguments and drunken behaviour.
James told us: “I think he was unlucky on Geordie Shore. He and Vicky might have been too similar – that’s why they argued – but that’s all people have seen of him and think that’s all what he’s about, but he’s actually a really sound lad. I’m glad people are seeing him for exactly what he is now. He is a nice lad and I can’t wait to see him when he gets out, find out what it was like in there and see how much he enjoyed it. I think he can definitely win it. It was like when Charlotte was in it, Geordie Shore has got a massive following, it’s crazy. I think Ricci will definitely be in the final.”