Hard as hell

He ‘ranted and bitched’ about his condition to his Big Brother housemates. But, Darnell Swallow tells Kelly Mullan, he still feels he’s made a difference

Darnell Swallow attended a Big Brother audition to support a friend, but stories of jail time in the USA, and the claim that he’d never seen BB, meant producers decided they wanted him for the show instead.

On his audition tape, Darnell said he wanted to represent people with albinism, but his attitude to his condition is complex. “People don’t get that being albino is hard as hell,” he says. “I was always bitching and ranting in the house because it’s hard to convey.”

Albinism affects skin pigmentation and eyesight. Darnell is black and partially- sighted, but people
assume he is white and, as the BB producers supposed, non-disabled.

“Housemates understood Mikey being 100 per cent blind, but not me being partially-sighted.” Darnell’s tendency to “bitch” about his condition was compared with fellow contestant Mikey’s apparent acceptance of his impairment.

Darnell says: “Me and Mikey got on well. We’re both rebels, but I’m not easygoing. I’m rougher round the edges. I’m still dealing with a lot of things. I want different things that disability is a hindrance to.”

An aspiring hip hop and R’n’B artist, Darnell says he is worried that featuring in Disability Now will damage his image. He says: “Music rivals say, ‘Who does this guy think he is coming out here all fly and flashy when he’s disabled?’ The industry is ruthless. Especially in hip-hop and R’n’B; it’s about being the best and walking with a swagger.

“It’s a hindrance to be the whitest guy in the room. Entertainment’s all about bright lights; I can’t really see in those lights. Going into the house, I did a lot of walking back and forward. I just couldn’t see where my ass was going.

“Before I go on stage I have to sit down and think how can I style this out? Everything has to be seamless. I can’t be Mr Cool if I’m stumbling in.”

Darnel says he found the hypocrisy of BB contestants jarring: “People say, ‘Albinism’s no big deal. I didn’t even notice.’ And I’m like, ‘What? Get off my dick! Of course you noticed.’ It’s a lie. In this society you notice if you have a pimple, or if someone has crossed eyes, or a uni-brow.

“Housemates say, ‘Your skin is so beautiful,’ and, in the same breath, say, ‘My skin is too white. I need a fake tan.’

“Mikey was on the couch on his own a lot but everybody said he was their favourite housemate. The kinky stuff he said and did, no-one else would’ve got away with. It’s a double standard. People wouldn’t listen to what he said; they’d just say, ‘That’s amazing,’ because that’s what you’re meant to say to the guy with the disability.”

Despite his experience in the BB house, Darnell still fears that declaring he is disabled means missing opportunities in his career. But it also depends on how the question is phrased. “If a form asks, ‘Do you have a disability?’ I’ll say, ‘Yes.’ If it asks, ‘Do you consider yourself to have a disability?’ I’ll say, ‘No.’”

BB put the question the second way; Darnell answered “no”. A week before the show started, he ticked the partially-sighted box on a medical form.

“They said: ’What the hell! Why didn’t you say anything?’ But I’m glad they didn’t find out, as they might have thought,‘We already have our disabled guy.’”

On leaving the house, Darnell was shocked to read of people with albinism being killed for body parts in Tanzania. “It ruined my day. I was speechless. It sucks that the article made us out to be a race of people.

We’re not a clan. It made me feel like less of a person. Looking at my girlfriend and thinking how could she want to be with me. I feel like a burden sometimes. Whoever is walking down the street with me is going to be stared at. Luckily, for now people are like: ‘It’s Darnell from BB.’ So it has changed; at least for the next month I can ride out the BB thing.”

Asked what he thinks of disability hate crime in this country, he says: “It makes me feel more imperfect, and different and insecure. At first you think: ‘It’s them, it’s them.’ But then you start to think: ‘Is it me? Is something wrong with me?’”

And as for his plans for building on his BB success, he says: “I hope people with albinism don’t get upset about this, but I don’t want to join organisations. It would make me feel more down, so I distance myself.

If I’m going to be different, which is what I am, I’d rather be different for something that I choose.”

Darnell releases his debut single on 17 November and hopes to find acclamation in music rather than as a BB star or an ambassador for albinism.

But he’s happy that his visibility has made some difference to perceptions of albinism: “I heard about an albino boy who was like me: scared, pessimistic, reserved. Now people are asking him if he’s me, girls fancy him. He’s the cool guy in the class now.”