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Chantelle gets carried away

By Valentine Low, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 31.01.06

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A tired and emotional-looking Chantelle leaves the party

Poor Chantelle. She really had been doing so well.

The girl from Wickford who proved that anyone can become a celebrity (just so long as they are surrounded by a bunch of D-list freaks and surgically enhanced has-beens) has until now passed every test with flying colours.

From fooling her fellow contestants into thinking she was famous to winning Celebrity Big Brother itself, she has not put a foot wrong.

Until last night. On the face of it, it was just the end-of-show party, a chance for the former housemates to get together, to let their hair down and forget what it was that Pete said to Traci, or Michael said to George.

But for Chantelle, 22, it was the ultimate test: How To Attend Your First Celebrity Party And Deal With All That Free Booze Without Getting Totally Pixilated.

And oh dear, Chantelle. That'll be an F For Fail.

By the time she left the party - at the Astor Bar in the West End - Ms Houghton was so refreshed that she needed the services of two security staff to help her stay upright. Altogether now: left foot, right foot, now the left one again... Meanwhile everyone else seemed to have had a very jolly time. Pete Burns turned up looking like a failed extra from South Pacific, Michael Barrymore was as dapper as it gets in grey suit and grey tie, and Traci Bingham seems to have spent much of the party exposing her midriff (which makes a change).

One can only hope that they had not read the early editions of the Sun in which Barrymore revealed exactly what he thought of everybody - from Faria ("a non-stop moaner") to Jodie Marsh ("vile, just pure vulgarity").

He was nice about Chantelle, though. "Perfect, absolutely adorable," he said. Just a little bit rough this morning.