At the height of his self-promotion driven ‘fame’, Stephen Bear had regular TV work, a million social media followers and an apparently enviable lifestyle with luxury cars, endless designer clothes and a flashy Essex bachelor pad.
The Celebrity Big Brother winner then seemed to have graduated from reality TV to bigger things as he bragged of being a billionaire while appearing at showbiz events and dating a string of glamorous women.
But now, can reveal, he is reduced to living at his mum’s where he spent Friday night staying in with a £3.79 frozen stuffed crust cheese feast pizza – which he cycled to his local Aldi to purchase on an old bike.
Given that Aldi’s pizza range starts at £2.49 this was clearly an extravagance for Bear who, aged 34, is penniless, jobless and reduced to living in a spare room of his parents’ modest suburban semi in one of the less fashionable parts of Walthamstow.
Stephen Bear pictured leaving Aldi with a £3.79 frozen stuffed crust cheese feast pizza
The Celebrity Big Brother winner was snapped riding a bike from his mum’s house
His former Essex bachelor pad that he was forced to sell after being found guilty of revenge porn
The turning point came a year ago this month when he was jailed for 21 months after a jury found him guilty of voyeurism and disclosing private material when he covertly filmed himself having sex with sometime girlfriend Georgia Harrison without her knowledge or consent.
And since he was released from that prison sentence in January on licence – which means he must regularly attend his local police station to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register – he has made a series of desperate attempts to try to recover some of the swagger that characterised him before.
And a investigation into his life outside prison has discovered that Bear is:
- Living like a penniless student on Jobseekers Allowance
- Struggling to get any paid media work
- Is shooting his own clumsy rap videos to promoting a supposedly edgy fashion label
- Is still trying to recover even a fraction of the 1m followers he had before his accounts were closed
In reality, Bear hasn’t fallen as far as it might initially seem because he had never truly risen as high as he made out in the first place. It was mostly an act, artifice funded by loans.
Rather than being a billionaire, as he regularly claimed, he was heavily in debt. His equity when he was finally forced to sell that bachelor pad was just £60,000, barely more than the deposit would have been.
He is now living at his parent’s house in Walthamstow after he was forced to sell his bachelor pad
A investigation revealed how Bear is struggling to get any paid media work
also found he is still trying to recover even a fraction of the 1m followers he had before his accounts were closed
The Celebrity Big Brother winner is pictured with a bike outside of his parent’s house
The TV work was at the very lowest end of the scale for both prestige and pay: Ex on the Beach, Just Tattoo of Us, Celebs Go Dating.
And the tawdry episode exploiting Ms Harrison was a desperate attempt to raise funds: he was selling access to the footage he had secretly filmed of their liaison to subscribers for $9.99 (£7.84).
So the former labourer had hardly set the lifestyle bar as high as he tried to make those social media followers believe. But still he has sunk beneath it since his release.
This week Bear has absurdly been shooting a video which depicts him as an edgy gangster – rather than the sex offender he is.
This saw him posturing in a balaclava and mimicking firing guns with his pointed fingers as he mimed through several gangster raps littered with four letter words. One, ‘Bad Guy’ by Samurai, begins with the words: ’ You’re all a bunch of f—— assholes.’
The video, later posted on his Instagram under the banner ‘Prison Issue’, was shot to suggest he was in some badlands no-go area. In fact it was being filmed on a nature reserve where school children regularly go to feed swans.
It was the latest episode in his venture promoting a downmarket sports label called ‘Mexican Cartel’ – which is being marketed on TikTok and other social media with hoodies and trackpants emblazoned with huge logos on offer from £29.
In one post of his antics this week pushing the label can be seen drawing an outline for a design to the music ‘Narcos’ by Rodrigo Amarante from the soundtrack of the gritty Netflix series which dramatises Colombia’s violent and powerful drug cartels.
It’s unclear whether Bear has a stake in the company itself or is simply being paid to promote it but he wore it to a court appearance.
The tawdry episode exploiting Ms Harrison was a desperate attempt to raise funds: he was selling access to the footage he had secretly filmed of their liaison to subscribers for $9.99 (£7.84)
This week Bear has absurdly been shooting a video which depicts him as an edgy gangster – rather than the sex offender he is
This saw him posturing in a balaclava and mimicking firing guns with his pointed fingers as he mimed through several gangster raps littered with four letter words. One, ‘Bad Guy’ by Samurai, begins with the words: ’ You’re all a bunch of f—— assholes’
Pictured: Lee Valley Nature Park where Stephen Bear had shot a video for Mexican Cartel Drip clothing brand
But interest in this new venture is minimal so far – despite having built up 22,000 followers he has only a handful of ‘likes’ for his posts on his clothing range.
That court appearance was a confiscation hearing last Friday in an ongoing legal process which could see him being ordered to pay Mrs Georgia Harrison as much as £23,000 in damages – the amount he is said to have made by selling his vile sex tape on Only Fans.
At the hearing it was stated that Bear is on Jobseeker’s Allowance and so only able to pay Georgia Harrison back £10-per-week. This would mean if he has to repay the full amount to her, it would take him som 44 years to pay the debt off.
The winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2016 had been jailed on March 3 last year.
At the time of the video, Bear was posing as ‘a billionaire’ on his Twitter and YouTube accounts but was ‘in fact heavily overdrawn’, Essex Police financial investigator Laura Mackenzie told the court in Chelmsford when he was prosecuted.
Prosecutor Andrew Bousfield added ‘despite pretending to be a billionaire, his most valuable asset at the time was selling sexual videos’.
His OnlyFans account was said to have had fewer than 2000 subscribers even after a 43 per cent increase in response to his shocking treatment of Ms Harrison.
His main asset at the time was £60,000 equity in his house, the court heard.
He lived in a two-bedroom end-of-terrace house before his arrest in Loughton, Essex which was sold for £400,000 on July 25 last year but most of the proceeds went to his lenders to pay off the mortgage.
That court appearance was a confiscation hearing last Friday in an ongoing legal process which could see him being ordered to pay Mrs Georgia Harrison as much as £23,000 in damages. Pictured: Raw Gym where Bear frequents
At the hearing it was stated that Bear is on Jobseeker’s Allowance and so only able to pay Georgia Harrison back £10-per-week. This would mean if he has to repay the full amount to her, it would take him som 44 years to pay the debt off
His OnlyFans account was said to have had fewer than 2000 subscribers even after a 43 per cent increase in response to his shocking treatment of Ms Harrison
Aside from his clothing promotion efforts, Bear seems to have little to fill his days.
When not working out at Raw Gym in Lea Bridge Road – where he takes out his frustrations on punch bags – he spends hours at a time listlessly scrolling his phone.
As he walks around Walthamstow and neighbouring Leyton, between his mum’s house and his gym, no one appears to recognise him, despite his garish clothing.
Parents Stephen and Linda initially welcomed their errant son when he came out of prison in January with a homecoming party. But it’s unclear how long they will be prepared to let him live with minimal income in their spare room.