‘Celebrity Big Brother’ housemates Jermaine Pennant and Chloe Ayling have broken one of the fundamental rules of the show, by passing written messages to one another.

As revealed in Thursday’s edition of ‘Bit On The Side’, footballer Jermaine was the first to break the rule, using an eyebrow pencil and one of Chloe’s make-up sponges to pass her a note saying: “I like you.”

Yes, that’s Jermaine who’s been married to glamour model Alice Goodwin since May 2014, but let’s continue.

Upon getting his note, Chloe then responded with her own, asking him: “Since when?”, to which he wrote back: “Since day one.”

Communicating via written messages goes against one of the most important rules in the ‘Big Brother’ house, so we’re anticipating that they’ll both be punished in Friday’s show, during which either Hardeep Singh Kohli or Natalie Nunn will be the first of this year’s celebs to leave the ‘CBB’ house.

HuffPost UK has reached out to ‘CBB’ for further comment.

The current series of ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ has been as controversial as ever, with as many as 1000 complaints to Ofcom already having been made, mostly due to producers’ decision not to remove “Human Ken Doll” Rodrigo Alves despite him having used the n-word twice during his first night in the house.

Many have also taken issue with one of the show’s border control-themed tasks, which made light of Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the Mexican border.

‘Celebrity Big Brother’ continues on Friday night at 9pm on Channel 5.