Come Dine with Me bosses set me up for a row – they made me pull a stunt that left my co-star fuming

A COME Dine With Me contestant has revealed how bosses set her up to clash with a fellow diner in a stunt that left her fuming.

Christine Ogden, 72, took part in the popular Channel 4 series in 2019 when it was filmed in the Bath and Bristol area.

A Come Dine With Me contestant has revealed how bosses set her up to clash with a fellow diner

Christine Ogden took part in the Channel 4 show in 2019

Christine – a former pub landlady – didn’t always gel with fellow contestant Shelley during the week, and when it came time for the latter to host on the final night, Christine was encouraged to wind her up by members of the production team.

Speaking exclusively to The Sun Online, Christine recalled: “I had a salt and pepper pot, one of these where you put the batteries in.

“They said ‘take one of them out [with you]’. So I took it out of my bag and she saw it and said ‘Oh well I’ve got one of them’ and we all goes ‘yeah we know you’ve got one’ because she was that sort of person.

“It’s like I said to them, we can all brag. But they [the production] must know, they’re very clever.”

While the pepper pot incident didn’t make it into the episode in the end, Christine also pulled a stunt of her own – without the aid of anyone behind the camera – to wind up her dinner rival.

She said: “She was one of those who had been on holiday five times a year and you could see the others…she was going on about it too much and bragging.

“I’m the sort of person where I say what I see and so on the last night I took some cotton wool, and she was going on about this and that and they all took the cotton wool.

“But it makes the programme, everybody who has seen it thought it was hilarious.”

However, some of Christine’s fellow diners thought her joke was a bit mean, with one saying “at their table, in their home, I think that’s quite rude.”

Once in the safety of her kitchen, Shelley told the cameras: “Christine’s been a little bit rude.

“She gave them out to the rest of the group and they took them! I think what I might do now is stay schtum through pudding.”

At the end of the night, the scores were revealed and Shelley ended up coming joint first with Chris and James, while Christine came second and Jamie-Lea was last.

While Christine wasn’t upset about where she finished in the competition, she was surprised by the long hours of filming the show required.

She revealed how she would be picked up around 4pm and most nights didn’t get home again until 1am or 2am.

She said: “We did have a laugh but when I see the episodes I don’t look at it like that, all I know is I look shattered and tired and I just wanted to go to bed.”

Christine was encouraged to take a pepper pot along to wind up fellow diner Shelley

While the moment didn’t end up airing, Christine decided to take cotton wool to tune out Shelley

Shelley was not impressed by Christine’s antics

Come Dine With Me airs on Channel 4 and is available on All4.