Eighteen years of Big Brother, indexed. Every power, every recurring competition, every twist the show has run — written from the live feeds as it happened, not recapped afterwards. Start anywhere.
Powers and twists
- Diamond Power of Veto — the rarest power in the game. Four appearances since 2003, the most recent Devens’ in Big Brother 28.
- The Coup d’État — the only power that can overturn both nominations after the veto ceremony.
- Pandora’s Box — open it and something good happens to you, something bad happens to the house.
- The Saboteur — one houseguest, paid to wreck the game from inside.
- America’s Player — the season the audience gave the orders.
- America’s HOH — the week the audience nominates, and nobody in the house can stop it.
- America’s Vote and America’s Choice — every time the audience has been handed a say.
- Big Brother twists — every twist and named power the show has run, season by season.
- The Twin Twist — two identical twins playing as one houseguest, in Big Brother 5 and 17.
- The BB Blockbuster — three nominees, and one last competition on eviction night to get off the block.
- The BB Time Capsule — Big Brother 28’s fan-voted room of powers and punishments borrowed from past seasons.
- Fast Forward and double eviction — a whole week of the game inside one live hour.
- Never Not Pass — permanent immunity from Have-Nots, and the four houseguests who have held one.
- Battle of the Block — two HOHs, four nominees, and one of the most divisive twists the show has run.
Fundamentals
- Big Brother Power of Veto: How It Works — A complete guide to how the Power of Veto works, who plays, when it is used, replacement nominees, backdoors, final-four rules and the history of the veto.
- Head of Household Guide — what HOH actually means, what’s in the room, how lockdowns work, and how the three-part Final HOH decides the last eviction of the season.
- Final HOH — the three-part competition at the Final 3: who plays each round, when each part runs, and why Part 2 never airs on the feeds.
- Jury and Jury House — when jury starts, how many houseguests go, what the jury house is really like, and how houseguests work the jury long before anybody votes.
- Nominations — the Friday ceremony that puts two houseguests on the block, what a pawn is, and why the feeds go down for it.
- Evictions — who votes and who cannot, why houseguests vote to evict rather than save, what happens when it ties, and why the feeds go dark for the whole live show.
- The backdoor — what it is, why it only works after the veto, and the Big Brother 5 week that invented it.
- Alliances — how they form, why they break, and the famous ones from Chilltown to the Cookout.
- Punishments and Costumes — The unitards, the veto prizes nobody wanted to win, and how long you have to live with one.
The competitions
- BB Comics — every competition since 2014, all twelve winners, and 197 cover galleries.
- Zingbot — the roast that arrives every season, and the zings people still quote.
- OTEV — the pissed-off penguin, the paranoid pigeon, the Hogfather. Every incarnation.
- The Wall — the endurance HOH: how it works, every winner since Big Brother 10, and the records.
- The Pressure Cooker — the longest competition the show has run, and every time it has come back.
- Luxury competitions — cars, cash, trips, and the prizes that never got handed over.
Inside the house
- House floor plans — every layout the show has built, season by season.
- Slop and Have-Nots — the rules, the ingredients, and every Have-Not room since BB11.
- The Diary Room — why there are two of them, and what production actually says in there.
- The Memory Wall — from the key wheel to the digital screens.
Watching the show
- When is Big Brother on — the nights, the times, and why the start keeps moving.
- The live feeds — Paramount+, and what the feeds actually show.
- Live feed updates — how our coverage works and where to find it.
- Our coverage, season by season — every season we followed on the feeds, from Big Brother 10 to Big Brother 28.
- The live show — eviction night, start to finish.
- The finale — jury questions, the keys, and the vote reveal.
- Big Brother After Dark — the overnight broadcast, and what it left in.
- Videos and complete seasons — where to watch the old years.
The record
- Past winners — Every champion since 2000, the exact jury vote, and the prize money.
- How much do you win on Big Brother? — $750,000 for the winner, $75,000 for second, and what everyone else takes home.
- Eviction Records — How often the vote is really unanimous, the closest one ever cast, and the twelve houseguests who were evicted twice.
- Returning players — every season that put vets in with newbies, how they got in, and how few of them won.
- Controversies and scandals — every expulsion, and how CBS’s response changed over twenty years.
- Is Big Brother scripted? — what production controls, what it does not, and who has really made the show since 2000.
- Showmances and flirtmances — who paired off, and what happened after.
- The Cookout — the Big Brother 23 alliance that took all six of its members to the final six.
- The Brigade — the dominant Big Brother 12 alliance, known for its grenades.
- Alliances by season — who was in what, member by member: Big Brother 17, Big Brother 18, Big Brother Canada 3 and Big Brother Canada 4.
- Strategies — the plays that keep working, and the ones that never do.
- Expelled and self-evicted — everyone who left the house without being voted out.
- Cast index — every houseguest, every season.
- America’s Favorite Houseguest — the $50,000 the public votes on, and every winner since 2006.
- Where Are They Now: BB1–BB10 — what happened after the confetti, from the first cast in 2000 to the last class before the HD era.
Houseguests
The players the archive knows best: the full record, the moments that defined them, and every feed post we wrote about them. Everyone else is in the cast index.
- Andy — beat GinaMarie 7–2 for Big Brother 15 after taking the final HOH. Nominated once, and never a vote cast against him.
- Bayleigh — Big Brother 20 and 22: the first juror in 2018 after her secret power leaked, then out 9–0 in All-Stars.
- Britney — fourth on Big Brother 12 against the Brigade, back for Big Brother 14 until Dan’s Funeral sent her home.
- Chima — Big Brother 11: saved on a tie in week 1, HOH until Jeff’s Coup d’État, gone on Day 42.
- Dan — won Big Brother 10 with the show’s first 7–0 jury, then lost the Big Brother 14 final to Ian 6–1.
- Daniele — Big Brother 8, 13 and 22: runner-up to her own father, with five HOHs and five vetoes across three seasons.
- Derrick — beat Cody 7–2 for Big Brother 16 without being nominated once.
- Dr. Will — won Big Brother 2 without ever holding HOH, then reached the final four of All-Stars.
- Frank — three HOHs, two vetoes on himself and America’s Favorite on Big Brother 14, back for Big Brother 18.
- Ian — beat Dan 6–1 for Big Brother 14 after four HOH wins, and returned for Big Brother 22.
- James — Big Brother 17 and 18: America’s Favorite in 2015, third place the following summer.
- Janelle — four seasons, no win: the Sovereign Six, the All-Stars veto run, and records that stood for 14 years.
- Nicole F — Big Brother 16, 18 and 22, and a 5–4 win over Paul in Big Brother 18.
- Paul — lost Big Brother 18 and Big Brother 19 by one jury vote each, the only houseguest to do it twice.
- Rachel — won Big Brother 13 and played three seasons, from the Brenchel years to Big Brother 27.
- Steve — beat Liz 6–3 for Big Brother 17 after surviving all five of his nominations.
- Tyler — built Level Six, lost Big Brother 20 to Kaycee 5–4, then finished sixth on All-Stars.
Reference
- Glossary of terms — block, backdoor, floater, HOH, POV, and the feed slang fans use.
Big Brother Classics
- Big Brother All-Stars — both seasons, 2006 and 2020, and why they’re remembered so differently.
- Big Brother: Over the Top — the 2016 online-only season, where America voted every week and picked the winner.
- Big Brother Reindeer Games — nine returning players, six December episodes, no feeds and no votes.
- Celebrity Big Brother US — three CBS seasons, 2018, 2019 and 2022, and why it stopped.
Season by season
Cast, evictions, twists and the full record for every season. Start from every Big Brother US season or every Big Brother Canada season, or jump straight to one:
Big Brother US1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Big Brother Canada1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
From the archive
Older reference pages, kept as they were written.
- Big Brother 14 schedule — the 2012 broadcast and feed schedule as it ran.
- Big Brother 14 polls — what readers were predicting at the time.