The first person dismissed from the new and improved Big Brother says she knew almost immediately that her fellow housemates “weren’t really keen on having someone like me”.
Laura Coriakula was given her marching orders tonight, only hours after the Big Brother house threw open its doors.
And the 25-year-old from Melbourne said her strong personality put her at odds with her housemates immediately.
“We live in a society that has always had the man being dominant in everything they do and the woman is quite submissive in the sense of we are quiet,” Coriakula told The West Australian.
“A good woman is reserved and she is silent, she speaks when spoken to, she is delicate.
“It’s an entire image that paints a woman to be silent, in all sorts of different arenas and I was just not raised that way.
“My mother and my grandmother and most the women in my family were like whatever you want to do, you do it.”
Big Brother returned to Australian TV screens for the first time in six years tonight as it made its debut on Seven, hosted by Sonia Kruger.
From the start of the episode, Coriakula was nothing but her proud “feminist, pro-black, vegan” self, dismissing fellow housemate Kieran Davidson’s nickname of “L-dog” and taking over the household rationing in moves that led her to be labelled as “full on and intense”.
She said she did not believe the reaction would have been the same had a man acted as she did and she realised she was in trouble after narrowly losing the first challenge after a battle with Talia.
“I knew as soon as I lost the challenge that I was gone,” Coriakula said.
“I could feel it … I think people weren’t really keen on having someone like me, where I’m not afraid to sort of dominate challenges and win everything and show that.”
And her dismissal of Davidson came back to bite her when he threw Coriakula under the bus to save himself come eviction time.
“I knew he would survive … not because he is good, it’s just I know how people think, you know,” she said.
“When you are in an environment that is extremely strategic and you have $250,000, you will do what’s best for yourself.”
