TOWIE’s scandalous start – Big Brother star claimed TV execs ‘stole’ his idea

Two years after winning Big Brother in 2007, Essex lad Brian Belo came up with an idea for a fly-on-the-wall documentary.

It would feature all his rich mates and detail their glamorous lives, lavish spending and love of excess.

And to get it off the ground, he rounded up Sam Faiers, Mark Wright, Kirk Norcross and Amy Childs to shoot a trailer for the show – Totally Essex.

In the epic video, semi-professional footballer turned night club promoter Mark was seen bragging about buying £5,000 rounds and his pulling prowess.

He gloated: “We’re not an ugly bunch of boys either so we don’t even need to pull out that [money] as much, but the fact that we’ve got that, and we’re good looking, the girls just fly in.

“Just all round our table, on our laps, I probably couldn’t tell you one week or one night of the year we go home empty handed.”

A 21-year-old Kirk showed the cameras around his dad’s sprawling manor house estate and his own pad, boasting about dropping £1,500 on drinks for his mates on a standard night out.

Amy proudly showed off the boob job she’d got at 17 while Sam, who had just won Nuts magazine’s Babe Search 2009, was seen writhing around on a zebra bedspread sharing her glamour modelling dreams with the camera.

“It’s not like I’m going to take it to the next level and do, like, porn, or anything like that,” she said.

“Do you know what I mean? Just underwear and topless modelling.”

Brian even featured in the trailer, which he then pitched to TV execs at Lime Pictures. However, he was raging when the cast he had hand-picked suddenly showed up in another, very similar, programme titled The Only Way Is Essex – made by Lime Pictures.

He immediately accused ITV and Lime of ‘stealing’ his idea and launched a £4million lawsuit.

He said at the time: “I worked on the idea for two years, I got the cast together and pitched to the production companies.

“I’m very proud of its success. I want people to know where it came from.”

However, the two companies robustly defended themselves, with the point of difference said to have been the fact that TOWIE was semi-scripted while Totally Essex was a documentary.

A joint statement read: “The Only Way Is Essex is an original concept created and developed by an award-winning team at Lime Pictures.

“Brian Belo’s claim against Lime and ITV is totally without foundation and will be vigorously defended.

“The creative team at Lime Pictures is very proud of TOWIE, and the notion that it was not entirely their own work is a serious allegation which is completely refuted.”

However, Brian allegedly had receipts, including an alleged contract by Lime Pictures apparently asking him to sign over the rights to the format for £2,500.

An out-of-court settlement was finally reached at the 11th hour, with the details kept confidential.

While Brian’s lawyer Graham Atkins was ‘delighted’, the same couldn’t be said for Judge Peter Smith.

“I express my disappointment,” he said, adding, “I was looking forward to trying this case.”