Yahoo Movies Brent Champagne reacts to his Big Brother team turning against him
He called himself the puppeteer. He said he "should be an accountant because I'm absolutely crushing these numbers." He told us "My gut is never wrong." But little did the flight attendant realize that he had already been booked on a one-way trip out of the Big Brother house.
Brent Champagne was evicted by a unanimous 11-0 vote on Thursday's live edition of Big Brother, and not only did his own teammates vote against him, but they were actually leading the charge to get him out. EW spoke to Brent the morning after his ouster to find out why it all went wrong and see how he was feeling about being betrayed by his teammates. (Also make sure to check out our weekly Q&A with host Julie Chen Moonves.)
CBS Brent Champagne on 'Big Brother'
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You told Julie after you were voted out you were not shocked, but we saw tons of diary room messages from you were calling yourself the puppeteer and were extremely confident, so confident that you didn't even want the veto used on you. So when did that confidence start to wane?
BRENT CHAMPAGNE: I'm many things, but an idiot isn't one of them. I would be naive to think that me plotting as much as I was plotting, that it wasn't going to be happening against me. So it's more or less a hope for the best, prepare for the worst. You would like to know that your team's behind you, especially if there's a team aspect of the game, but as the days progressed I was using a narrative that the team aspect might be taken away from the game. And that might be something that people wanted to take into consideration with the betrayal that was happening on the Kings as far as Alyssa's concerned and narratives I was telling my own team. And after a while, when you say it enough, people actually will start to believe it. And in this case, they might've done too, too well of a job telling them that was going to happen sooner rather than later, and it backfired to my face.
But it was just the way everyone was acting is what kind of gave it away. Britini was a little too happy. She was walking around all bubbly, smiling, laughing. That's not really good for a guy in my position that's going up against her on the block. They tried to tell me I was the target from day 1, nothing about me screams pawn, especially if I have a target on my back on day 1. So it's hard for me to believe that I wouldn't be on the crap end of the stick. In a perfect world. I was hopeful, but I would have been more shocked if I stayed and my reaction would have been what everyone wanted if I got the votes, than if I didn't. So I'm sorry to disappoint everyone that was waiting for me to be like, "Oh my God!" Cause it just all made sense to me.
11 to 0. Which vote against you surprised you the most?
Alyssa would be the one that was most surprised about, because like I said, in the beginning, I would have targeted her and Christian just for the verbal confirmation that he was very attracted to her and he wanted to date her. And they're on the same team. And I was like, they are a threat because they're going to become close and he's going to make it a mission to become close. And being on the same team as her, now they have reasons to be around each other and plan. And so that would have been my main target as well. The first week, if I was HOH, just get rid of Christian, who is absolutely crushing it, by the way. So I mean, my intuition was right, but the fact that I really fought to try to keep her and Kyland off the block and keep Derek X safe as well after what he did conspiring against me and Frenchie, it was really a messy cleanup job.
And we were able to get all three of them to stay safe and Travis to go home. We didn't have to do that. I was brought into the Slaughterhouse alliance last, and it just so happened to be two people that were nominated that week. We're now a part of it. And I was like, okay, well, this is just messy. And we had a mutual understanding and a final two, because we kind of were in the same spot where we were targets for reasons that we didn't feel were acceptable: me being a meathead and her being associated with Christian. That's why we were targets in the beginning. So yeah, her, because I feel like it felt like we had more of a reason to be aligned than anyone else.
As we're talking, you've only been in the house for 12 hours. So there are some things you know from talking to Julie, and there are some things you've probably figured out and other things you haven't. What might be most surprising to you is that not only did your teammates not vote to keep you, but they were actually leading the charge to get you out, especially Hannah and Whitney, who said at one point in the Diary Room that "Nothing would make me happier than to win the veto and then not use it on Brent and just see the look on his face when he knows that his entire team betrayed him." What do you make of them not just turning on you, but taking such glee from it?
I'm a very strong personality. I think a lot of us are in the Big Brother house. As far as me and Whitney getting along, we were obviously nice to each other, but our personalities clashed every chance they had. And the team aspect of the game was very interesting because we were forced to be with these people. And I wouldn't have worked with Hannah and I wouldn't have worked with Whitney. Maybe Derek X, because our personalities worked a little bit better, but it's very hard to build something on personalities that clash and want to go separate ways and take the game on in a different way.
And I could tell Whitney, she would always snap or get snarky and when anything didn't go her way. She would storm off and go talk to someone else that wasn't part of the team. So I'm not surprised. Hannah, I knew there was way more to her that she was allowing everyone to believe. She was very reserved and calm and cool collected all the time. And I was like, "There has to be more She has to let out the feistiness just a little sometimes. There has to be so much more than I'm missing." And I've called her out a few times about it. So that goodbye message, I was actually like, my gut was right! She's feisty and she's a lot more than she leads on, I think she's going to win it. I'll be honest. I think Hannah would win.
That's so interesting you said that because Frenchie said the exact same thing last week, that she's playin the best game in the house.
She's part of so many different alliances and she's just able to stay in her lane and stay under the radar. And she's always doing her little dances and teaching people how to dance and stuff. And it doesn't really look like she's playing much game, but, in the end, she's playing a lot of game. I can take the game aside and I know who the people were before they came in and then obviously a switch is flipped, and now you gotta be someone totally different on the inside of the house. I don't hold it against anyone. So her goodbye message actually made me happy because at least I was right — that there is way more to her. She's definitely crushing it. And I believe if she does not win it, she'll make top two.
CBS Brent Champagne and Britini D'Angelo on 'Big Brother'
I I'll ask you something. I asked Julie last week, because all the votes in the house have either been unanimous, like with you, or very close to unanimous. Why do you think that is? Why do you think the whole house seems to be voting as a giant block?
I just think it's the herd method. People don't want to stray away from the herd because then it makes them the next easy reason to go up. It's very common for people like Derek X. He might really like me as a person, as far as we laugh a lot and talk about absolute nonsense. But at the same time, it'd be unwise for him to be like, "Oh, you guys are all going that way so I'm gonna go this way for a little bit and then meet up with you later" It's like, "No, no, you already abandoned us the first time around. What makes you think we're going to take you back?" So if anyone went against the vote on me, they would have been easy at the next nomination ceremony to be like, "Listen, you just weren't doing what we wanted you to do. So you're up and you gotta go."
Whom did you feel closest to in the house? Whom did you think was your biggest ally?
My only final two was Alyssa. Yes. And Alyssa needed to do what she needed to do. And I never said that I had wrapped around my finger. I might've maybe, but I said more or less that I'm really close with her and have her in my pocket. So I guess pocket and a finger could be, you know, uh, interpreted the same way, but I had to portray a narrative to a lot of people that I was working with because she was on the Kings, mind you. I can't just say, "Hey, listen, we're best friends and we're gonna be best friends outside of the house and all this. I can't just go around telling people that we're best friends. I have to more or less be like, "Listen, I have her in my pocket, so you don't have to worry about that."
But, for the most part, the connection and the friendship were genuine. I'm going to go out and visit her for Halloween and everything like that. She even said that in her goodbye message. It's more or less, whatever's good for our game at the time. And I would have evicted me as well. So, it's a no-brainer.
I was just trying to see if I could make it another week. The veto, unfortunately, as I said, I'm a man of numbers, numbers don't lie. People do. So seeing those votes obviously tells you a lot more than taking yourself down from the veto. I wanted to win the veto. I didn't mind if I didn't, but I also got sick. So there was nothing I could really do. I won the first round and then I got called out by Xavier. And then obviously him calling me out after he put me up to help with a veto. And then you still have Derek F that you could target in the veto, just painted the picture to me that I am the target. I got sick and was shoulders deep in a bucket and there's nothing I can really do. So it is what it is.
If you could go back and change one thing about your game in the hopes of having a different result, what would it be?
I wanted to go in and be quiet and be more observant and reserved, but Frenchie made it so difficult for me, especially coming after me in the very first couple of days, and then making it known to everyone that I was his target. And then that I was no longer his target. Now I have to say and do whatever Frenchie wants me to do, because he still has the power. That was really the most frustrating part for me was that my game was messed up. As soon as I walked through the door because of a gentleman that had an idea in his head of "I'm going to get rid of the meatheads" — that made it tough. Once you have that target on your back, it doesn't go away. And just like, Britini keeps being put up as a pawn. That would have been happening to me if I was able to get by. So if it wasn't this week, I was going to be gotten rid of next week. But if I could do it all over again, I would talk a lot less.
Last thing. If someone, on one of your flights recognizes you from being on Big Brother, do they get an extra drink or something?
I'll leave that to, uh, to the experience. So if you do see me on a flight, that will keep you guessing. Who knows? But yeah, most likely. Just don't tell United.
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