'The more people criticised, the stronger I became'


If you didn't see Nadia Almada coming, you would definitely hear her. That amazing signature laugh (half witch's cackle, half fire alarm) is already cascading down the stairs as I make my way up into a West London bar to meet this year's Big Brother winner. The former bank clerk from Woking and Portuguese transgender woman is having her photograph taken, very much in her element, posing and chatting among the fragile soapy globes thrown out by a child's bubble machine.

Once the photographs are over, Nadia sits with me and smokes just as she did in the Big Brother house - brilliantly and continuously, as if she were a starlet auditioning for a role in an art-house movie. This is her first interview with a newspaper since her win: Nadia surprised everybody by not selling her story to a tabloid ('I wanted to be in control a bit, a little more private'). In person, she turns out to be as lovely, honest, defiant and vulnerable as she was when she was winning over the viewers in the Big Brother house, showering in her high heels, screaming for cigarettes and fretting about her 'secret' in the diary room. She is pretty, too, very radiant and glamorous. Looking at her, you think again of how unfair (not to mention ungallant) it was of housemate, Victor, to describe her as 'Antonio Banderas with boobs on'.

Now into the second week of her new-found celebrity, Nadia reveals that she's still very much on a high. 'I haven't grasped it yet,' she smiles. 'I haven't stopped and said "That's me!" on TV and covers of magazines, or grasped being stopped by people in the street.' Has she ever felt pestered? 'Not at all. If it was negative stuff, you'd think, "Oh no!", but it is all "I voted for you", "I loved you". To hear such comments, who could ask for more? I should enjoy it," Nadia grins sagely. 'Next week, next month, whatever, this is all going to fade away.'

Nadia's emergence from the Big Brother house with four million votes (74 per cent of the total) was one of the unexpected TV highlights of the year. What could have so easily become an exploitative freak show turned into something genuinely moving: her euphoria at being validated and accepted; the crowd's euphoria at her euphoria. For once, there seemed to be a harmonious sense of yin and yang between the public and an instant celebrity. 'I felt so flattered,' says Nadia. 'I still do. I could die tomorrow and be a very happy person. I just feel so comfortable and if you'd seen me six months ago, I wouldn't have been comfortable at all, with pictures of me as I was before, or anything.' Nadia lights a cigarette thoughtfully. ' Big Brother changed me. It really changed me.'

It wouldn't be too wild a claim to say that Nadia has single-handedly 'saved' the Big Brother franchise. She certainly revitalised it, giving it a much broader and deeper emotional appeal. Big Brother 2003, when 'Cameron the Christian' won, was an acknowledged flop. This year, the makers, Endemol, pulled out all the stops, delivering 'evil' Big Brother. They were rewarded with nude lawn-mowing, bitterly polarised cliques, sex under a table, and a fight so bad the show was taken off the air temporarily, not to mention the customary newspaper headlines screaming about exploitation and the moral decline of the nation. Whether you loved it or loathed it, or did both at once, no one could deny that Big Brother was on form again.

However, it took Nadia to turn Big Brother into a cultural barometer. Finally, among the endless catwalk of wannabes, here was someone with a real story to tell. Whereas the series has long abandoned any pretence at being a 'social experiment', she used her time in the house to conduct an experiment all of her own: that of being accepted as a woman in her own right. While the viewers knew about Nadia's past, her fellow housemates didn't, leading to scenes of almost unbearable pathos amid the mud, jam and rumpus: Nadia's confessionals in the diary room; the heartbreaking way she froze on the sofa when her housemates starting taking about transgender; those excited, terrified tears as she was dancing to 'La Isla Bonita' in the final week.

On a wider level, the triumph of a Portuguese transgender woman in the nation's greatest unofficial popularity contest threw up important questions about Britain today: Are attitudes shifting? Is there a greater tolerance and broadmindedness, at least among the nation's youth? Or is it unwise to attach too much sociological significance to a moment floating out from reality television's own bubble machine, perhaps doomed to pop and splatter as it hit genuine reality?

Phil Edgar-Jones, executive producer at Endemol, admits to being 'thrilled and pleasantly surprised' by Nadia's win. 'We never expected when we put the housemates in that a Portuguese transgender woman would end up winning.' He points out that there was a very similar fuss when Brian Dowling became the first gay man to win Big Brother in 2001, and that Nadia was not the first transgender person to apply to Big Brother: 'What we liked about Nadia was that she wasn't so much on a political journey as a personal journey. We found that intriguing. It was a bit like a soap opera wasn't it? She knew, we knew, but they didn't.'

Edgar-Jones adds that the fact Nadia won probably had much more to do with her personality than anything else, a sentiment echoed by Mark Frith, editor of Heat, the 'self-appointed Big Brother magazine'. Nadia gave Heat her first interview out of the house, and is in the process of being rewarded with a record four covers in row. 'Our readers adore her,' says Frith. 'Yes, she's been on this journey, yes, it's all very serious. But there's this other side to her that's all about this incredibly infectious laugh and how entertaining she is. Considering what she'd been through, it was even more admirable that she was kicking back and having the time of her life, putting the hose-pipe over her head and singing "It's Raining Men".'

Transgender groups, representing 5000 people in the UK alone, have also been quick to praise Nadia. 'She's gone her own way about being accepted as a woman,' says Leanne Fuller of The Gender Trust, the UK charity for transgender people. 'She has taken the public eye not in a form of sympathy but in a form of empathy.' Christine Bond, author and lobbyist for transgender group, Press for Change, agrees: 'Nadia's most valuable contribution was that she's put a face and personality to people's stereotyped ideas about transsexual people. Her big personality means that people focused on Nadia as a person without considering her medical history.'

However, Bond does sound a note of caution. After a 12-year battle, the British transgender community won major legal rights this year, including the right to marry and change their birth certificates and passports, but this won't necessarily heal all wounds. 'Nadia has shown herself to be very vulnerable,' says Bond. 'She will need some time to digest this experience. She would have expected until quite late in the day that people would reject her because that unfortunately is the received experience of all transgender people.' Indeed, Nadia tells me that she never expected to win. 'I'd created barriers in my own mind that people would not give me a second chance or second glance because of my past. Coming from where I came from, after what I'd been through, I expected the worst; I was prepared for the worst. I was so happy to be proved wrong.'

Nadia was born Jorge Almada on Madeira 27 years ago, the eldest of six sons to father, Jose Luis, and mother, Conceicao. When she was 11, the family emigrated to South Africa. Nadia was unhappy there. Her father's alcohol problem meant he worked erratically and Nadia, as the eldest, had to work and help care for her brothers with her mother, missing a lot of school in the process. When Nadia was 16, Conceicao left Jose Luis and took the children back to Madeira. Her father has since told the press that he had always wanted a daughter and now God had given him one. 'He was kind enough to say that', says Nadia. 'But it does not change what he made us go through. I've forgiven my father but I will never forget.'

Back in Madeira, Nadia battled with continuing feelings that something 'wasn't right. I always felt I was different to my brothers and the "little boy" stereotypes.' At the age of five her father caught her using nail polish and slapped her. Hitting puberty, she became more confused. 'It was frightening because I didn't understand it. I felt I was weird, a freak; an abnormal person.' She was, she says with a chuckle, 'very feminine', doing her hair, plucking her eyebrows, putting on make-up. Her gregarious personality meant she had a lot of friends but it was a quiet rural area. Men coming into the bar would be threatened by her femininity, and there was inevitable criticism and bullying from those around her.

Nadia was upset when her mother started getting criticism, but it still didn't deter her. 'The more people criticised me, the stronger I became. I said: "If you want to behave like that, I'll behave like I am, and tough luck, you either like it or lump it".' By now, Nadia assumed she was gay: 'just because I was attracted to men. I didn't know any different. Obviously I could relate to the tag of being gay.' As Jorge she had a few sexual experiences. 'I thought it was the right thing to do, but I wasn't happy, it wasn't right. I wanted to be with men but I didn't want them to see me as one. Men were attracted to me because they were gay, they were attracted to me for my genitalia, but I wanted to be with a man who saw me as a woman.'

At 19, Nadia followed her friends to Woking, but it was only during a stint working in Brighton that she felt comfortable enough to begin the process of transition, living publicly as a woman. A sympathetic GP back in Woking paved the way, and she began taking hormone tablets. Nadia being Nadia, she lost no time in getting her breasts surgically enhanced from a B to a DD cup. ('I wanted more!'), but she admits she found life difficult in the early stages. 'I went through a dark stage after I started taking the hormones. I had the mood swings, I put on weight; I couldn't stand looking at myself in the mirror. And again no relationships; I couldn't face it. They would have been attracted to something (she grimaces slightly) different and I wanted them to be attracted to me as a woman.'

Nadia wasn't nervous about the actual operation: 'I couldn't wait. I was always on the phone: "When is this happening? Can you bring the date forward?" I was pestering all the time. I was like a stalker.' She says when she woke up afterwards she felt 'complete' for the first time. 'My body was in pain but my heart was so happy. I felt reborn again. If you ask my friends, the person I was before, in energy and excitement and happiness, there's no comparison. I never looked back.' Her eyes flash. 'And I never will, believe me.'

A few months after the surgery, Nadia joined the Big Brother house. Wasn't this too soon? A motorway pile-up of life-changing experiences? Nadia insists it couldn't have come too soon for her: 'I wanted to have some fun! Don't forget, I'd wasted the best years of my life: my teenage years, my early twenties, watching my friends and cousins having relationships, holding hands, all that, I lost all that because of what happened to me.' Later, in a rare 'down' moment, Nadia says softly that sometimes she wants to take 'a big eraser' and rub out all the years that have gone before. 'I just wish I'd been born normal, a normal straight woman, so I didn't have to go through the things I went through, and the people around me have been through as well.' That's why, after the operation, Nadia didn't want to waste a single moment. Indeed, she says her prime motive for going into the Big Brother house was to have fun and meet new people. 'I wanted to enjoy it, embrace the world! I didn't want to sit around and have deep conversations or anything like that.'

I need this seems to be the key to Nadia, the time she believes she's 'lost' and her corresponding sense of urgency, coupled with a pragmatic view of what life might have to offer. Nadia signed to John Noel Management after her win, and is currently inundated with offers, ranging from magazines and radio to music and TV (she certainly won't be going back to being a bank clerk). However, she seems to have a very grounded take on her celebrity, which must make her the first-ever realistic reality TV show winner. 'I know how superficial this industry is,' she shrugs. 'One day, you're the hero; the next day no one wants to know you. If people wish to consider me a celebrity I'm very flattered but I don't really think I'm worthy. I took part in an experience and had an amazing response and I'm quite content with that.' It helps that she has lifelong friends around her, as well as the support of her family, including her mother who was there to greet her when she came out of the house.

A long-time Big Brother fan, Nadia says she didn't find any part of her stay particularly stressful ('Apart from having no cigarettes, hahaha'), even though she wasn't popular with all of her housemates (part of the fun this year was observing the stand-offs between Nadia's 'lip-gloss bitches' and the incredulous hetero boys). She also pours scorn on ex-contestants who claim the show ruined their lives. 'Pooh!', she cries. 'Nonsense! They made their choice to go in the house. After the first year, the consequences were there for all to see.' On the other hand, it becomes clear during our conversation that, while Nadia is delighted with the positive reaction of the transgender community ('I'm glad if I can educate people about my experiences'), she doesn't like being constantly reminded about it, or for that matter defined by it.

'I don't want to tick a box and say I'm transgender. I don't understand why people want to categorise themselves like that.' She sees it as another prison? 'Exactly. Rather than consider themselves transgender they should just let their personalities shine. We are women, I am a woman. If you want to get into that, you're going to be stuck most of the time talking about what you've been through, and that is the last thing I want.' She seems much happier speculating about her future 'Prince Charming' - either a Hugh Grant type ('that gentlemanly English thing') or 'Vin Diesel: A manly man, with a big physique, so he can give me a hug and I feel protected in his embrace.'

Her ideal future would include an 'interesting career' and 'someone there with me, someone to share my happi ness and my sad moments as well,' she cackles, 'my stroppy moods and my diva demands!' Even when I press her, Nadia adamantly refuses to be concerned about future media intrusion, kiss and tells, or anything else from the dark side of celebrity - her attitude seems to be that people have already made their minds up whether they like her or not. In short, Nadia's attitude seems to be that she has undertaken her crash course in acceptance to prove herself as a woman, and that is that. 'It's my past, it was part of me, fair enough, goodbye!'

As I prepared to take my leave, this was the only thing about Nadia that worried me. Although her positive attitude is magnificent (Nadia could teach us all a thing or two about living in the moment), you wonder how she will fare if and when the media honeymoon comes to an end. She has not only become a woman, she has become possibly the most famous woman in Britain, and as such her 'past' is bound to infect her present and her future. Moreover, while the public affection at the time of her win was clearly genuine, and (the mainly youthful) Big Brother audience is unlikely to be prejudiced, there was also a 'love-bombing' element that rang hollow. It was almost as if Britain was trying to prove something to itself about itself that wasn't quite true.

In essence, they were cheering for Nadia, the colourful character, rather than Nadia the woman, which proves perversely that she won on the strength of her personality rather than any unusual aspects of her past. (Which makes sense: you could be a freshly arrived alien, with green and purple spots, but if you're boring, a Big Brother audience won't vote for you). Just as I am about to leave, it transpires the paparazzi are waiting outside. Is Nadia OK about that? Does she want them moved on? Nadia, cigarette in hand, merely narrows her eyes at all the fuss, shrugs and lets rip with one of her life-affirming, throat-exposing guffaws. I have the feeling the little lady will be all right.

Model, fashion adviser, TV presenter... what next for Nadia? We asked the experts

Mark Borkowski Borkowski PR, arts promoters

Nadia needs to be very careful with what she chooses to do now. She shouldn't take the easy route and fall into the 'Portu-geezer' role. There's an honesty and a passion to her and she has lots of options at the moment - London Fashion Week is coming up and a canny designer could use her as a model, and I think she could happily front a chat show. If Eurotrash needs a rebrand, she could front that or the Portuguese Tourist Authority could use her as a spokeswoman.

Annabel Robinson FMCM Associates, books PR

Nadia has real character and this could mean longevity in the media. She's probably best placed to be a TV presenter and could maybe host her own talk show. She could also have a fashion column - she's very fashion-conscious so it could be like Nadia meets Sex in the City. If she wanted to write an autobiography it would have to be ghost-written. It would probably have a broad market - certainly women in their twenties and thirties and the gay audience.

Sarah Ivens Deputy Editor, OK! magazine

She'd be fabulous in an OK! shoot. I think she's one of the most exciting people to come out of reality TV for a long time. She'd make a fabulous fashion adviser to other celebrities - her outfits were so glamorous. I can imagine she was a tough housemate - especially when she ran out of cigarettes, and so she'd be a great case study for Allen Carr if he managed to stop her smoking. She's a modern triumph over tragedy.

Big Brother update: where are they now?

Craig Phillips Big Brother 1

After failing to impress with his debut single, 'At This Time of Year', Craig made a name for himself acting as a DIY expert for various daytime TV shows. He also makes guest appearances on Channel 4's Bo' Selecta! where he often appears chained in a cupboard. The shrewd businessman still runs the building company that he owned in Liverpool before entering the Big Brother house.

Brian Dowling Big Brother 2

After giving up his day job as an air steward, Brian co-presented the ITV1 Saturday morning children's programme SM:TV with Cat Deeley. He has also presented his own gay dating programme, Brian's Boyfriends, also on ITV1, and narrated reality-TV show The Salon.

Kate Lawler Big Brother 3

After a stint presenting Channel 4's ill-fated breakfast show RI:SE, Kate is now perhaps best known as a model for lads' magazines and for her Newcastle United footballer boyfriend, Jonathan Woodgate.

Cameron Stout Big Brother 4

The Scottish former fish trader and devout Christian has made some limited TV appearances after winning the £70,000 prize but has largely disappeared into happy obscurity. Current plans include taking part in a research project where he'll follow an Atkins-style diet in order to highlight the problems of obesity, before playing Prince Charming in a pantomime in Aberdeen.

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