The start of June begins the countdown to Big Brother 21. In the upcoming weeks, we expect a massive increase in rumors and spoilers about this season of Big Brother, and we plan to address a few of these rumors by disproving, proving, or discussing them. The return of Big Brother pairs, couples, or duos is the latest rumor that has the Big Brother 21 community buzzing.
Every year, we get some form of speculation or rumor about all-stars (which we’ll address that rumor in a few days) or returning players. Big Brother 20 was the first season since Big Brother 17 that had no returning players. The CBS executives love to bring back returning players, especially when they’re at the peak of their popularity. Therefore, we really shouldn’t be surprised if this rumor proves to be true.
The rumor began with a tweet from Brent Wolgamott, who is a Live Feeds correspondent on Rob Has a Podcast. We believe that Brent wouldn’t tweet false rumors for the hell of tweeting false rumors, so there is a chance he heard this from a reliable source. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it will prove to be true on June 25th because plans change, etc.
So….I rarely tweet things like this, but I’m going to stick my neck out and give you all some tea. #BB21….expect 8 returning vets.
☕️ ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️ pic.twitter.com/ky6FOcJc8J
— Brent Wolgamott (@OneLuckyGay) May 30, 2019
According to Brent, there will be eight returning players. He also hinted that two of them will be Bayleigh Dayton and Christopher “Swaggy C” Williams. After Brent’s initial tweet, others started tweeting more information, claiming that the rumors were true.
They also said that it would be a season of pairs. There would be four pairs of returnees and four pairs of newbies. Along with Bayleigh and Swaggy C, Tyler Crispen and Angela Rummans’s names were also tossed around as possible pairs. Da’Vonne Rogers name also got into the mix when she confirmed that she wouldn’t be filming this season of The Challenge.
She was cryptic speaking about it, and fans assumed that this meant she would be in one of the Big Brother 21 returning pairs. At one point, Big Brother Over the Top players Shelby Stockton and Alex Willett’s names were mentioned as pairs returning for Big Brother 21.
To us, this seems a little early for reliable information to start surfacing. Every Big Brother social media fan knows that now is the point in the season were fake accounts pop up claiming to know all. Brent and some of the others speaking about this rumor don’t fall into that category, so there may be some truth to this rumor.
Angela and Tyler are a very popular romance right now, so it makes sense for CBS to want to ride that wave as long as possible. If Jessica Graf and Cody Nickson weren’t busy and millionaires when Big Brother 20 airs, we would have bet that CBS would have tried to get them on that cast somehow. The people behind the scenes at Big Brother clearly love showmances, and they’re more popular than ever right now.
Bayleigh and Swaggy C also make sense because they have their own strong and dedicated fan base. To be honest, we wouldn’t be surprised if CBS just goes a full Big Brother 20 couples repeat and also try to get Faysal Shafaat and Haleigh Broucher back into the house as well.
Da’Vonne is very popular among the Big Brother fans, and now The Challenge fans, but we have no clue who they would pair her up with for this pair twist. It’s also very rare that a player gets a second chance, let alone a third, but it’s not impossible as we’ve seen a few popular players in the past play three times. However, we think the fans are jumping to conclusions because of Da’Vonne’s break from The Challenge.
Alex and Shelby’s return seems like straight fan fiction. Mainly because Alex has addressed CBS’s treatment of Big Brother Over the Top people in the past. CBS sees BBOTT as a completely separate thing. This would make it strange if now they start including them in the regular series. It would also confuse many people who didn’t watch the online only version. Additionally, Shelby seems very over reality television life and we’d be completely shocked if she agreed to return to the Big Brother world.
The rumor could likely be true, but it seems like an odd decision to have pairs and eight returning players. If there are eight returning players, that means there are only eight newbies, which seems very limiting. Now Big Brother Canada 5 (in our opinion) was one of the greatest seasons of North American Big Brother ever and it had eight newbies and eight returning players. The reason the season worked so well was because the returning players chosen were entertaining and good players. The newbies (minus a few) weren’t as appealing as the returning players. The flaws with that season, which will likely be with this season as well, is that the returning players dominated the game.
They controlled the evictions all season, mainly because they were able to manipulate the newbies so easily. If Ika Wong didn’t decide to kind of switch sides, and if Demetres Giannitsos didn’t win so many competitions, it would have been a returning players complete domination over the newbies. With Big Brother19, we saw how influential returning players can be, even if only one of them, over new players. If that many returning players are playing, we should see another domination of the newbies, which could get boring fast.
One of our favorite parts of any new season of Big Brother is meeting the new cast and making judgments about them. With only eight new players, that not only limits our choices but also limits the casting decisions. The casting team would have to put a lot of hope into those eight pairs or just hope they picked the right eight players to return. Additionally, if we only meet eight new players when the cast gets revealed, it’ll become pretty apparent that the rumors are true.
In Big Brother 18, we knew the rumors about four returning players were true because we only met twelve newbies, but there was still the possibility of a shortened season so limited players. It didn’t seem set in stone, yet pretty obvious. With only eight new players, there is only one conclusion that can be made: returning players are coming.
Personally, we would prefer either all returning players or none. Unfortunately, we have no control over what the producers decide to do this season, but we’re hoping this rumor is false.
What do you think of this possible pair and returning players season? What pairs or players would you like to see return?
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