{"id":337600,"date":"2026-03-09T21:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/337600\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T21:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:35:11","slug":"former-bargain-hunt-contestant-shares-all-banned-items-they-cant-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/337600\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bargain Hunt contestant shares all banned items they can\u2019t buy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who was once a contestent on Bargain Hunt has revealed which items participants were allegedly banned from buying.<\/p>\n

Stephen Bielby featured on the BBC<\/a> programme back in 2018 alongside his daughter Emily, claiming that there were ‘restrictions’ put in place by producers.<\/p>\n

The popular TV<\/a> programme aired for the first time in 2000, with two pairs in Red and Blue competing to buy antiques to make the largest profit at auction.<\/p>\n

It’s always an entertaining<\/a> watch, but Stephen pulled back the curtain on how things were really like for contestants on the show.<\/p>\n

He explained to the Daily Mail<\/a> that he and Emily were fans of the show and after applying, they were called to try out at a Leeds hotel where they did a ‘mock show’, going around and buying things.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen opened up about banned items on the show (BBC)<\/p>\n

Reflecting, he said that it was a ‘fun day’ where showrunners could ‘get a feel’ for how they interacted, and they were soon on the show themselves.<\/p>\n

Stephen and Emily wore blue fleeces on the show, though the dad<\/a> admitted that they ‘don’t know much about antiques’, despite having an eye for a bargain.<\/p>\n

The former then opened up on some of the items which contestants were banned from buying on the show, which he claims they were told to avoid.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe dad said that Coca-Cola, among other items were banned (Jakub Porzycki\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“Yes there are restrictions, you can\u2019t buy heavily branded stuff, like Coca-Cola or Disney items. You couldn\u2019t buy any antique weapons, like the old guns,” he explained.<\/p>\n

The dad also claimed that the producers are precise with ‘the timing’ during the show, adding: “They go around with a stopwatch.”<\/p>\n

\"DisneyDisney items were off limits as well (David Benito\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He went on: “If you take a break or need to film an extra bit, they stop the watch. When you’re back to looking for items, they start it again.”<\/p>\n

He admits that it’s ‘very fair’, and that if you’ve had a ‘cheeky’ conversation, they’ll ask you to re-enact it for the camera.<\/p>\n

When asked about his highlight from being on the show, Stephen replied that it was simply being ‘involved’ in filming it all.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe antiques-based show has been a hit on TV for over 25 years (BBC)<\/p>\n

Stephen said that you ‘meet a lot of people’ as they film numerous teams on the same day.<\/p>\n

“On the auction day, there were about seven or eight teams altogether,” he revealed, adding: “They keep you in a green room and tell you not to give away what you bought or how much it went for. Everyone was a good sport, though.”<\/p>\n

LADbible has reached out to the BBC for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who was once a contestent on Bargain Hunt has revealed which items participants were allegedly banned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1578,93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-337600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bbc","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}