Celebrity Big Brother viewers accuse male housemates of ‘ageism’ after Ann Widdecombe and Rachel Barrie are nominated

Celebrity Big Brother viewers have branded the male housemates ‘ageist’ after Ann Widdecombe, 70, and Amanda Barrie, 82, were selected to face eviction.

The house was split into two teams - men and women - and each side was asked to select two housemates from the other side to face elimination.

Fans of the show were angered as the men, including Ginuwine, Jonny Mitchell and Daniel O'Reilly, chose to save the younger women Malika Haqq, Jess Impiazzi and presenter Ashley James.

One Twitter user wrote: "The lads in #cbb need to be brought up for ageism.. if it was the opposite way around and it was racism or homophobia they would've been brought up for it straight away. Not fair at all."

"The men, with the exception of Wayne (Sleep), are blatantly ageist," said another.

One person asked: "Are the men threatened by the older stronger women?"

One said: "Seems to be a running theme of BB that younger male housemates will always nominate older female housemates."

"Bit of ageist voting going on there methinks #cbb," said another.

The male and female teams will compete in a series of tasks and the nominated housemates from the losing side will face a dreaded backdoor eviction.

This year's series of the Channel 5 reality show has Year of the Woman as its theme.

It started with just female housemates and the men entered at a later stage.

So far the only contestants to have been eliminated are women in their 50s and 60s - Maggie Oliver, India Willoughby and Rachel Johnson.

During Sunday's show, the women selected comedian O'Reilly and football star John Barnes as their nominated housemates.

Barnes took the news in his stride but O'Reilly - whose stage name is Dapper Laughs - was visibly upset.

Celebrity Big Brother continues nightly at 9pm on Channel 5.