Big Brother 10 ended with the only clean sweep the show had ever produced. Dan beat Memphis 7–0 in September 2008 — every juror, including four people he had personally helped evict. It was a short season, seventy-one days, sold as a return to basics, and it produced the single most-replayed veto ceremony in the show’s history along the way.
Winner: Dan 7–0 · $500,000
Runner-up: Memphis $50,000 · no jury votes
Third place: Jerry evicted by Dan at the final three
The jury: Libra, April, Michelle, Ollie, Renny, Keesha, Jerry · all seven for Dan
Viewers’ prize: Keesha, $25,000 · voted favourite juror
Who won Big Brother 10?
Dan won Big Brother 10 on 16 September 2008, beating Memphis by a unanimous 7–0 jury vote. It was the first shutout in the show’s US history. Memphis took $50,000 as runner-up.
Dan did not expect it. He had gone into the night counting on 4–3, reckoning he had Keesha and Renny, assuming Jerry and Libra were Memphis votes, and treating April, Ollie and Michelle as the swing. All three of those went to him. So did Jerry, who spent the question round calling him a Judas and then voted for him anyway.
The viewers’ prize that year was not a full-cast America’s Favorite Houseguest. It was a vote for favourite juror, and Keesha won it and $25,000, with Jerry second.
- Aired: 13 July to 16 September 2008 on CBS.
- Length: 71 days — short, against the 90-plus-day seasons that came later.
- Houseguests: 13, no returning players, no pre-existing pairs.
- Jury: seven.
- The twists: America’s Player for one week, a Fast Forward double eviction, an alumni visit, and a live studio audience at evictions for the first time since Season 1.
- Nobody quit, nobody was expelled, and nobody came back. Thirteen in, one winner, no returns.
The Renegades
Dan and Memphis. Two people, no third, and it held from the middle of the season to the final two.
Accounts differ on exactly when they struck the deal — some say early, Dan himself said afterwards that the moment he knew it was real was Jerry’s week, when Memphis used the veto on him. But the feeds settle it closer than the interviews do. By 10 September, viewers watching live were saying the Renegades had been running since week four, which puts the pact at roughly Jessie’s eviction and makes it about five weeks old at the finale.
Jerry, asked afterwards why he never managed to break them up, was blunt about it: “Both of ’em together was a force we couldn’t reckon with.”
America’s Player
CBS announced it on 29 July, which rather punctured the back-to-basics pitch the season had been sold on. Viewers voted for one houseguest to do America’s bidding for a single week, with $20,000 on offer if they completed the tasks. No immunity, and they could not tell the house.
America picked Dan. He accepted.
- Task one — get a named houseguest nominated. America chose Jessie. April nominated him.
- Task two — hug someone for ten seconds. America chose Jessie again.
- Task three — vote to evict Jessie. Dan did.
Jessie left 4–3, and Dan’s instructed ballot was one of the four. That is worth stating carefully, because it often gets flattened. America did not evict Jessie; the house voted him out and America directed a single vote inside a margin of one. Jessie, for his part, blamed the audience in his exit interview.
The house was never told. It was revealed to the jury at the finale, along with the $20,000.
Big Brother 10 week by week
Week 1 · Brian evicted 9–1Jerry HOH · 16 July
Jerry, at 75 the oldest houseguest the show had cast to that point. Nominated Jessie and Renny.
Jessie won it and took himself down. Brian went up in his place.
Brian, 9–1 — he had played too hard, too early, and the house compared notes. Dan cast the only vote to keep him.
Week 2 · Steven evicted 9–0Jessie HOH
Jessie. Nominated Dan and Steven — Dan’s reward for that lone vote.
Michelle, not used.
Steven, unanimously. Dan survived the only nomination of his season.
Week 3 · Angie evicted 8–0Keesha HOH
Keesha. Nominated Angie and Jessie.
Keesha won it herself and left the board alone.
Angie, unanimously. Jessie survived a second week on the block.
Week 4 · Jessie evicted 4–3April HOH · America’s Player week
April, after a two-hour-forty endurance comp. Nominated Jessie and Memphis, breaking a promise to Michelle to keep Jessie safe.
Jerry, not used.
Jessie, 4–3 — the closest vote of the season, with Dan’s America’s Player ballot inside the margin.
Week 5 · Libra evicted 6–0Michelle HOH · first juror
Michelle. Nominated Keesha and Libra.
Jerry again, not used.
Libra, unanimously, becoming the first member of the jury.
Week 6 · April evicted 4–1Renny HOH
Renny. Nominated April and Jerry — and declined to put Ollie up.
Dan, not used.
April, 4–1. Ollie lost his closest ally and spent the rest of his game in the minority.
Week 7 · Michelle evicted 3–1Dan HOH · Replacement Nominee Roulette
Dan, outlasting Ollie on the wall — and making the deal that defines the season. See below.
Jerry and Memphis, honouring his deal with Ollie by nominating his own ally.
Memphis won it and used it on himself, which handed Ollie the right to name the replacement.
Michelle, 3–1 — the direct result of Dan breaking the last clause of the deal.
Week 7b · Ollie evicted 3–0Fast Forward · same night
Julie called it a Fast Forward — a live eviction, then a full extra cycle inside the same hour.
Keesha, who finished level with Jerry and took it on a tiebreaker question. Nominated Jerry and Ollie.
Dan, not used.
Ollie, unanimously, a week after being outplayed by his own deal. Five left.
Week 8 · Renny evicted 2–0Jerry HOH
Jerry, his second. Nominated Dan and Keesha.
Memphis, and he used it on Dan — the moment Dan later said convinced him the Renegades were real. Renny went up.
Renny, 2–0.
Final four · Keesha evictedDan HOH
Dan.
Memphis, which left him as the only houseguest able to vote.
Keesha, on Memphis’s sole vote. She said the next morning that he had worked out she would take Dan over him.
Finale · Dan wins 7–016 September
Part one, the endurance round: Dan. Part two, Jerry against Memphis: Memphis. Part three, live on finale night: Dan beat Memphis.
Dan evicted Jerry and took Memphis, putting both Renegades in the final two.
All seven for Dan. The first unanimous jury in the show’s US history.
Replacement Nominee Roulette
Dan and Ollie were the last two standing in the week-seven endurance competition, and the deal Dan struck to end it is the one Dan himself called the worst in Big Brother history — on camera, on the Sunday episode, about a deal he had made and intended to keep only partly.
Ollie stepped down. In exchange he got three things: one nomination of his choosing, one person made safe, and — if the veto was used — the right to name the replacement.
Dan honoured the first two. He nominated Jerry and Memphis, putting his own closest ally on the block. Memphis won the veto and took himself off, which triggered the third clause. Ollie wanted Keesha.
What Dan did instead, at the veto ceremony, was invent a game and name it out loud. He called it Replacement Nominee Roulette, and went round the room asking each houseguest who the replacement should be. Michelle said Keesha. Ollie said Renny. Keesha said Michelle. Renny said Ollie.
Then he ignored all four answers and named Michelle himself.
The poll was cover. Dan was never bound by the answers and had no intention of putting Keesha or Renny up. Ollie spent the rest of the week calling him the biggest snake in the house and throwing and breaking things around it. Michelle went home on the Fast Forward night, and Ollie followed her out the door in the same hour.
Dan’s own verdict, a week later when Keesha asked him about it: it was just for show, and he thought it might have cost him.
Keesha’s birthday
The first of August, 2008. A kitchen argument that had been building for days finally went off — April, Libra, Keesha and Jessie over who had been telling whom what, then Renny and Jerry going at each other on top of it.
And then, at half past ten at night, with nothing resolved and nobody speaking to anybody, the house assembled in the kitchen to sing Happy Birthday and eat cake. One viewer watching the feeds live described it as the dysfunctional family gathering, and added, in parentheses, that they were not kidding.
Libra’s line into the silence afterwards — “Anybody want cake?” — is the one that survived. CBS packaged the whole thing onto the 5 August episode, fight and cake together, and it has been a clip ever since.
It is worth saying that it changed nothing. The week’s nominations were already set and nobody was evicted because of it. It is one of the most-watched minutes the show has ever produced and it had no effect on the game whatsoever.
Dan’s Funeral was not this season
This comes up constantly, so it is worth being plain about it. Dan’s Funeral belongs to Big Brother 14, in 2012, when Dan came back as a returning player. None of it happened in 2008.
What Big Brother 10 has is Replacement Nominee Roulette, which is a different move entirely — a public performance of consultation used to disguise a decision already made. The two get blended together in retellings because they belong to the same player. They are four years and one whole season apart.
One more thing the record does not support: Dan is often described as having played a perfect game here. He was nominated in week two, and survived it. The unanimous jury is real; the untouched run is not.