Nadia Almada

This name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name is Conceição and the second or paternal family name is Almada.

Nadia Almada
Born	(1977-01-28) 28 January 1977 Ribeira Brava, Madeira, Portugal
Television	Big Brother 5 Ultimate Big Brother

Nádia Conceição Almada (current name; birth name is Jorge Leodoro) (born 28 January 1977) is a British reality television star who was born male but has chosen to look like and live as a woman. He is known for being the first transgender winner of Big Brother in series 5 in 2004.

Media career

Big Brother

Almada competed in the fifth series of Big Brother in 2004; he kept his transgender identity secret from fellow contestants although viewers were informed. After 71 days in the Big Brother House, he emerged as the winner, securing 74% of the overall vote and winning £63,500. He had regularly topped polls as the public's favourite Big Brother winner. Big Brother presenter Davina McCall has said Almada was her favourite housemate of all time.

Life after Big Brother

Almada went on to record a single entitled "A Little Bit of Action", which reached Number 27 in the UK Singles Chart in December 2004. He also made a guest appearance in the soap opera Hollyoaks turning on the Christmas Lights. He entered the Big Brother Australia house visiting the three finalists during week 14 and has made various appearances on televised chat shows and game shows (most notably on "Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2004"). In 2008 he co presented The Big Brother Launch Night Project on the launch night of Big Brother 9. He took part in Celebrity Fitness Videos Not Fit For TV, which was hosted by Lorraine Kelly and Eamonn Holmes. The show featured celebrities performing Almada's own Latino inspired Dance/Fitness video, Latino Dance Workout, which he released in 2004.

In the beginning Almada was a contestant on the Channel Five reality show, Trust Me...I'm A Holiday Rep. Almada was a replacement for Britain's Next Top Model contestant Jasmine Lennard. The following year he was a celebrity guest on a four-day stay on Channel 4's reality TV show, Fool Around With...; his goal was to decipher who out of several male contestants was single, enabling them to win £10,000. In an interview with Heat magazine in June 2009, Almada revealed that he is writing his memoirs. In 2010, to mark the end of Big Brother in the UK, he appeared on a Big Brother winners special of Channel 4 show Come Dine With Me, with Big Brother winners Brian Dowling, Brian Belo and Sophie Reade. Almada finished in third place.

Ultimate Big Brother

On 24 August 2010, Almada entered the Big Brother house in Ultimate Big Brother; he immediately lost fans when he told Josie Gibson - who had won the eleventh and final series earlier that night - that her boyfriend John James Parton did not really like her. Josie left the house via the fire exit less than 48 hours later and Almada was blamed for this. Almada later had blazing rows with Coolio and told Big Brother in the Diary Room "it's either him or me!". Coolio walked from the house shortly afterwards. Almada later had a blazing row with Ulrika Jonsson over a plate Ulrika accidentally smashed, and viewers labelled him a bully after this row. Almada was nominated for eviction on Day 8, and was evicted with 33.3% of the public vote in a double eviction after Makosi Musambasi on Day 11. Upon receiving a negative reception from the crowd, Almada broke down in tears during his post-eviction interview with Davina. Later that night, he did not appear on Big Brother's Big Mouth (a standard expectation of evicted housemates), which Davina McCall allowed. He also did not make an appearance on Big Brother's Little Brother on 5 September (another expectation of evicted housemates), which George Lamb allowed. He was the only Ultimate Big Brother housemate not to attend the final on 10 September 2010, which Davina McCall also allowed. He has stated that the show has made him consider suicide.

Nadia complained that Davina McCall had joked about his transsexuality on the supplementary show Big Mouth, introducing a guest as having "the boyish good looks of Nadia". McCall subsequently apologised for the joke.

Personal life

Almada was born in Ribeira Brava on the Portuguese island of Madeira

and was known as Carlos. Almada moved to England in 1996 and worked in a department store in Woking. He has also managed a children's bookstore. Before appearing on Big Brother, he worked as a cashier in Barclays bank. His father, Luis, did not know his child was transgender until The Sun newspaper tracked him down and revealed the story. The Sun also dubbed Almada the Portugeezer, the "Portuguese Man O' War" and Nads, 'nads' being a slang term for gonads (testicles). His mother had not seen him for a year, since before Almada's transition, but was there to welcome him back into the outside world after the show concluded.

External links

• Nadia Almada at the Internet Movie Database
• "Nadia Almada - Biography" IMDb, Retrieved 31 March 2007

Preceded by Cameron Stout

Big Brother UK winner Series 5 (2004)

Succeeded by Anthony Hutton