The Big Brother 17 premiere is finally here! After months of rumors and speculation, we finally get to see the Big Brother 2015 cast in action for the first time.
Fourteen Big Brother cast members have been announced so far, and producers Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan told ETonline that fans should expect “two guests” for premiere week. More special guests will arrive each week to “take over the game and twist it up.”
We already have very strong rumors out there (and some decent evidence) that the special guests for premiere week will be Jeff Weldon and Jackie Ibarra from the last season of The Amazing Race. Whether or not they will end up being permanent or semi-permanent Housegusts in one of the season’s first twists remains to be seen.
Host Julie Chen also released a sneak peek earlier today of the first Head of Household Competition we can expect to watch the Houseguests suffer through this week. We can’t wait to see how the new Big Brother cast handles their very first HoH competition.
Stay tuned right here at 8PM ET / 5PM PT for our live recap of the Big Brother 17 premiere coming up!
Here we go!
Big Brother 17 host Julie Chen is looking skinny and fine in a black jumpsuit this evening. Let’s hope her fashion stylist keeps her out of some of the hideous things she wore last season.
She says if we think last summer was twisted, we haven’t seen anything yet. Tonight we will get three big twists. One will be a fan favorite, one will be a special twist only the audience knows about, and the third will be the Big Brother Takeover.
Now it’s time to introduce the Houseguests! Say hello to the first eight members of the Big Brother 17 cast!
We have adopted country Asian James Huling, who doesn’t know his ethnicity but does know about everything having to do with being Southern.
Next up we have Meg Maley, who loves living in New York City and has more bubble in her personality than a bottle of champagne. She lives with her gay best friend and loves being manipulative.
Then it’s on to surfer Jace Agolli from Venice Beach, CA. He’s inspired by Indiana Jones and he’s not afraid of anything and thinks his no fear attitude will take him to the top of Big Brother.
Here comes Audrey Middleton, who lives in a small town but says she is not a small town tirl. She is a “girly girl” and extremely competitive. She can’t wait to ‘surprise’ people.
Austin Matelson is a professional wrestler with a dark alter ego named Judas. He says people usually judge him by his appearance, but he’s more than just a big, strong guy. He also has a Master’s degree in Medieval Romance Literature.
Mommy Da’Vonne Rogers lives in Inglewood, CA and says growing up there was a hard knock experience. She is a professional poker dealer and she doesn’t mind getting blood on her hands if that is going to get her to the end. She has a 7 month baby at home she’s leaving for the whole summer.
Clay Honeycutt lives on a farm, loves his family, and loves to help his mom with the animals. He has played football for A&M University and he apparently has a fetish for taking off his shirt.
Home stager and decorator Shelli Poole is also a “girly girl” but she isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. There is a lot of punch in her little body, she says.
The new Big Brother 17 cast has only an hour to pack before they have to head out! We get some silly clips of the Houseguests talking about themselves, their strategies, and their showmance possibilities while they pack.
The Houseguests are all in the studio, and host Julie Chen tells them that they will have to endure a grueling 98 days inside the Big Brother house to win it all. The cast will enter the house in two groups, and once they are in, the game begins.
The first four to enter the house are Da’Vonne, Shelli, Clay, and Austin. Da’Vonne can’t stop screaming OMG over and over. Clay thinks Austin looks like a giant magician, like if David Copperfield and Andre the Giant had a baby. Da’Vonne thinks Clay is a little “hot to trot” and Shelli has to fan herself in the Diary Room over his deliciousness.
Next up to enter the house are Audrey, Meg, Jace, and James. Poor James runs around like a crazy guy trying to find some bed he can grab, but it appears he may have ended up with last choice. He says he feels like a “cow on astroturf.” Audrey says this will be the first time she will be”publicly sharing my truth with complete and total strangers.”
The Houseguests speculate briefly on why they are only eight of them in the house. Some thing maybe this means veterans will be returning, others think it will be an all newbies season. They examine the new aspects of the house, including the entirely glass-floored sky bridge. As one Houseguest notes, you don’t want to be wearing a skirt up there if anyone is below you!
The new Big Brother 2015 cast members gather in the living room to pop some champagne and get to know each other.
Audrey suggests they should all introduce themselves, say where they are from, and share one interesting thing about themselves.
Jace says he is a petty cab driver, but no, he says he is really actually a personal trainer. Meg thinks maybe her high energy could connect with him.
Clay says he’s from a small town and he’s a grad student at Texas A&M. He decides not to talk about being a football player and instead talks about his mom doing a wildlife rehab. Shelli figures out she is 10 years older than him, but she doesn’t care because “age is just a number.”
Shelli says she is a home decorator and stager, and she has a twin brother named Wes. Clay thinks “Shelli takes the cake” as far as the girls in the house go. Shelli is crazy over Clay, it’s a little much.
Da’Vonne says she has a seven month old daughter and says she is a second grade teacher. She totally lies outright about being a poker dealer. She thinks she is too awesome of a liar to be caught.
Austin admits he was a wrestler in the WWE but says he got injured very badly. He says in Diary Room that he is playing up all the injuries, but he is actually totally healed.
Meg says she is from New York and a waitress. James thinks Meg is totally hot and he “knew you was trouble when you walked in” and looks like Taylor Swift.
James says he’s from Texas and is also a South Carolinian. He says he is Asian and country and loves four-wheeling and all that stuff. He says he has a little girl at home with her mother.
Audrey is last and comes out with the big reveal. She says she is a Digital Media Consultant, and she is the first transgender person to be on Big Brother. Some of the Houseguests cheer, and some just look confused. Clay says he “never would have guessed it.” James says it “threw me for a loop” but he understands what it is like being judged, so that’s pretty cool.
Audrey, Shelli, and Da’Vonne talk about being nervous of the guys running the show. Meanwhile, Clay, Jace, and Austin are talking about working out. In Diary Room, Da’Vonne says they keep whispering around a possible alliance and she thinks it is the perfect time to take a leap.
Finally, Da’Vonne just suggests they group up. Shelli thinks the other two look like strong competitors. They all sign on and they agree to think about names and such later, and that they have to be very careful about when and how they communicate. First alliance to the girls on Day One!
The HGs gather in one of the bedroom to talk. Audrey immediately becomes a focus of conversation. Clay asks Audrey how her journey was, how her family dealt with it. Audrey says they didn’t do very well with it and they sent her off to a wilderness ‘guys’ camp with alcohol and drug abusers.
Clay says in Diary Room that he’s from Texas and has dealt with adversity, but hearing Audrey’s story puts so much in perspective for him. Audrey says her family came around and now they are very close. Da’Vonne thinks Audrey ‘spiced up’ her story to pull the Houseguests on her side and she thinks that’s all good for their alliance!
The cast is called to the living room to chat with host Julie Chen. They think they are getting more Houseguests coming in. But instead, Julie says two twists will be revealed. The first, she says, is the “fan favorite” twist — which she says is the Battle of the Block. Which means there will be two Heads of Household, and each HoH can nominate two HGs. The two pairs of nominees will go head to head in the Battle of the Block. The winners will be safe from eviction and dethrone their nominating Head of Household.
Fan favorite? Really? Everyone HATED that twist last year!
Now it’s time for the first Head of Household Competition to determine the first HoH of the week. Julie says, however, that ONE of the Houseguests has to sit the competition out. Austin thinks he should volunteer, but Da’Vonne speaks up first. She says she will sit the comp out if they promise not to nominate her. Everyone agrees, but we’ll see what happens!
Now it’s time for the first Big Brother 17 Head of Household Competition! Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier is live on the ‘red carpet’ for the UFO Oh No!!! Big Brother film. The competition is a movie premiere theme and Kevin interviews the cast members with silly questions before they compete.
The competition is called “Flying Tomatoes” because the movie is so rotten. The HGs have to catch red “tomato” balls and put in their containers. If they fall off their boards, they are out.
James takes an early lead, but those balls are coming hard and fast. And those boards are slanting and moving. Clay takes a fall first, followed by Austin, and Meg. Jace almost falls off but manages to climb back on his board.
The Houseguests are flattened by a blast of tomato sauce, which makes Da’Vonne very happy she sat this one out. Jace says they look like they are in Carrie. And then he almost falls off but saves himself again. James is still in the lead as the boards get shorter and keep moving. But then Audrey and Jace catch up with five tomatoes each, while Shelli only has three.
James isn’t having that and he grabs two more balls. He swears it is just beginner’s luck, but Austin is wondering if there might be more to James than just being a ole country boy.
Everything is super slippery and the boards are tilting all the way down. All of a sudden, the boards move again and EVERYONE left falls off! Julie Chen says they are going to have to check the replay to see who ends up the winner.
Back from commercial break and Julie says they have a winner! The replay shows that James was the last person to fall and he is the first Head of Household of the summer! Of course, with the Battle of the Block back again, he could still end up evicted this week even so.
Still covered in filth, the Houseguests have to gather in the living room again to learn the second twist to be revealed. Julie says this season the Houseguests will have to endure a new twist every single week in the new Big Brother Takeover twist.
Anytime they hear a drumroll and “Get ready for a takeover,” they have to run to the living room to find out what is going on. They won’t know who or what it is going to be. But they will have to “expect the unexpected” every single week.
The Houseguests immediately start speculating on what kind of insanity is going to happen. Austin says in Diary Room that this means the game will never settle down and everyone is going to be on edge from Day One.
Now Julie is ready to announce the last twist of the night, the one that only the audience will know. And as some speculated in pre-season, it’s a Twin Twist! One of the Houseguests has an identical twin, but the other HGs don’t know. They will both be playing in the house as one person, switching out now and then. (Likely we will see one twin enter the Diary Room and the second twin come out.) If they survive five evictions with their secret intact, then BOTH twins will get to compete as individuals.
* We are guessing the twins in question will be Liz Nolan and her sister Julia Nolan. In some photos out there, they really don’t seem to look that much alike. In this one posted on Twitter, they do look more like each other. Still, this is going to be a tough one to pull off. Especially with so many superfans who know this twist has been used before.
@BBGossip @bigbrothernet @ffebb94ad84644c @BigBroDoncey They look closer in this one. pic.twitter.com/3jBujav7Bo
— RFH (@rog3r_d) June 25, 2015
Before we sign out for the evening, we get a brief glimpse at some of the remaining Houseguests entering the house on Thursday. Please be sure to join us tomorrow night for our live recap of the second part of the Big Brother 17 premiere, where the first Big Brother Takeover twist of the season will be revealed!
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