LaTrice “Lala” Verrett won the Big Brother 28 Week 5 Head of Household on The Wall, outlasting Kamu heads-up after the rest of the house had come down. The comp started just before 10pm Pacific and was finished by 11:31pm when the feeds came back, putting it in the ninety-minute range – right in line with where modern Walls land.
It is the competition Big Brother fans wait all summer for, and the one houseguests dread. Here is what it is, where it came from, every winner since it debuted, the records nobody has broken, and how the Big Brother 28 house’s predictions held up against what actually happened.
What The Wall actually is
A large wall is built in the backyard with a narrow ledge or footpegs for each houseguest to stand on, and handholds to grip — in modern seasons, resin fixtures like the ones on an indoor climbing wall. They step up, and they stay up as long as they can. That is the entire competition.
What makes it brutal is everything production does while they’re up there:
- The wall tilts forward, sometimes suddenly, sometimes by degrees over the course of the night, pushing everyone’s centre of gravity out over open air
- Cold water, slime, paint, glitter and foam get blasted at them — which looks good on camera and, more importantly, kills the friction on the grips and the ledge
- The platform itself can move beneath them
- Some seasons add soft projectiles, or a ball-catching twist where the first player to catch a set number of balls wins outright
Once you fall, let go, or step off, you’re out. Last houseguest hanging on becomes the new Head of Household. There is no puzzle, no trivia, no skill component — it is a pure test of who is most willing to suffer, which is exactly why it produces the most-watched feed nights of the season.
Why it favours smaller houseguests
Endurance on the wall is a strength-to-weight problem. Lighter houseguests have less mass pulling them off the ledge, and a lower centre of gravity lets them press their hips to the wall and reduce the leverage dragging on their arms. Bigger, heavier players — especially tall men carrying muscle — have more weight to hold up and a worse fulcrum to hold it with. Forearms and calves go first.
There’s a fairness argument that comes up every year, too: the footpegs and handholds are installed at fixed heights and fixed sizes for everyone, regardless of how tall a player is or what size shoe they wear. A smaller foot gets most of the arch on the peg. A larger foot ends up balanced on the toes, which is a completely different competition.
The record backs it up. A woman has won The Wall in ten separate seasons — more than any other group. It is the most reliably winnable endurance comp for the players who lose most other physical competitions.
Where it came from
The Wall debuted on Big Brother 10 in Week 4, under the name “Livin’ On The Edge,” and April Dowling won it — the only HOH of her season, and still one of the longest holds in the show’s history. It has appeared in every US season since, with one exception: Big Brother 11 is the only season not to feature it since its debut.
It hasn’t always been a standard HOH. Big Brother 15 split it into two competitions running at once — a jury re-entry comp and an HOH comp — with Judd Daugherty winning his way back into the house while Elissa Slater took the power. Big Brother 16 used it as Part 1 of the final three HOH, won by Cody Calafiore. Big Brother 18 ran another re-entry version alongside the HOH, sending Victor Arroyo back into the game while Nicole Franzel won the week.
One rule change that made it harder
In the early years, houseguests could squat or crouch on the ledge — dropping their weight over their feet and taking the strain off their arms. That loophole is a big part of why the early Walls ran two and three hours.
Production eventually built it out. Modern versions add an obstacle beneath the competitors that removes the space needed to crouch, forcing everyone upright for the duration. Add steeper tilt angles and the switch to small climbing-style handholds, and the comp compresses hard — which is exactly what the numbers show.
How long does it actually last?
Danielle Murphree’s record came on the boat-themed wall with the adjustable bar. Shane Meaney had promised her a kiss if she won. She won. Tucker’s 32-minute walkover at the other end of the table lost five players inside the first ten minutes and drew a wave of complaints from feed watchers who felt robbed of a proper night.
Last season’s Wall took about an hour and twenty minutes. The multi-hour epics of the mid-2010s have largely given way to comps that resolve inside two hours — worth knowing if you’re planning your night around the feeds.
Every Wall competition and winner
Each season gives the comp a new themed name:
- BB10, Week 4 — “Livin’ On The Edge” — April Dowling
- BB12, Week 3 — “Hang 10” — Matt Hoffman
- BB13, Week 4 — “Big Brother Slalom” — Daniele Donato
- BB14 — “Walk The Plank” — Danielle Murphree
- BB15, Week 9 — “Off The Wall” — Elissa Slater (HOH) and Judd Daugherty (re-entry)
- BB16 — “Fly High Or Bye Bye” — Cody Calafiore (Final HOH Part 1)
- BB17, Week 1 — “Flying Tomatoes” — James Huling
- BB17, Week 6 — “On The Edge” — James Huling
- BB18, Week 10 — “Welcome To Loch Mess” — Nicole Franzel (HOH) and Victor Arroyo (re-entry)
- BB19, Week 3 — “Space Cadets” — Alex Ow
- BB19, Week 9 — “Everyone’s A Wiener” — Jason Dent
- BB20, Week 4 — “Out On A Limb” — Sam Bledsoe
- BB21, Week 10 — “Hold On Fright” — Jackson Michie
- BB22, Week 6 — “Power Trip” — Dani Briones
- BB23 — Derek Xiao
- BB24, Week 6 — Taylor Hale
- BB25, Week 7 — Jared Fields
- BB26 — Tucker Des Lauriers
- BB27 — Vince Panaro
BB28, Week 5 — LaTrice “Lala” Verrett - BB28 — LaTrice “Lala” Verrett
Celebrity editions have run it too — Omarosa Manigault won “Courtside Seats” on the first celebrity season, and Kato Kaelin took “Rock Til You Drop” on the second.
Wall records and trivia
- James Huling is the only houseguest to win The Wall twice — and he did it twice in the same season, BB17. He played it a third time and finished second to Nicole Franzel.
- Dani Briones is the only player to win it in two different seasons, nine years apart.
- Kato Kaelin is the oldest winner, taking Celebrity Big Brother 2’s wall at 59 years old.
- Four houseguests have won The Wall and gone on to win their season: Nicole Franzel (BB18), Jackson Michie (BB21), Taylor Hale (BB24) and Jillian MacLaughlin (BB Canada 1).
- On BB22, the top three finishers — Dani Briones, Cody Calafiore and Nicole Franzel — had all won a Wall in a previous season.
- Paul Abrahamian was present for three Walls and never won one. Christmas Abbott was present for three and never got to play in any — a broken foot for one, outgoing HOH for the other two.
The most infamous deal ever made on the wall
Because the houseguests are lined up side by side and can’t whisper, any bargaining on the wall happens out loud, in front of everyone, while both parties are exhausted. That has produced some of the show’s best television — and its most famous broken promise.
Week 6 of Big Brother 17: James Huling and Shelli Poole were the last two standing after more than two hours. Huling offered a deal — drop, and he’d keep her and her closest ally Clay Honeycutt safe. Poole took it and stepped down, handing him the HOH.
He nominated both of them. Clay went home. Nothing in the Big Brother rulebook enforces a verbal deal, and every player since has had to weigh that before believing anything said on the wall.
Thrown comps are the other tradition. Players who feel safe often drop early to avoid looking like a threat — Da’Vonne Rogers and Zakiyah Everette famously combined for barely half an hour between them on BB18. Watch tonight for anyone who comes down suspiciously fast.
And of course: Helen was pushed
No Wall article is complete without it. Big Brother 15, the split jury-buyback and HOH comp. Helen Kim falls off her platform, loses her shot at re-entering the house — and the feeds catch what looks an awful lot like a hand reaching out from behind the wall near her feet.
The footage got frame-by-framed into oblivion. The theory never died. To this day, in this community, Helen was pushed — and we will be saying it again tonight the moment anyone takes a suspicious tumble.
It’s in our dictionary and everything.
Big Brother 28’s Wall: how it went
Haley Thogmartin sat it out as outgoing Head of Household. Everyone else went up after the eviction, and it came down to Kamu and Lala alone on the wall, with the house watching from below. Lala outlasted him.
Nobody saw it coming. Not one person in the house named her, and neither did the fan board.
Here is what the house had predicted, and how it landed:
Haley’s board had Kamu and Mallory battling it out at the end, with Yash strong, Taylor lasting a while, and Dee outlasting most of the field. She had Chuk, Drew, Melody and Devens dropping early. She got the Kamu half right and missed the winner entirely.
Devens picked the smaller frames: “That’s when I can see Lyric or Mallory pulling it out. They’re small. Center of gravity is at their hips.” Lyric was evicted before the comp started. Mallory didn’t take it.
Barrett, resigned before it began: “If it’s the wall HOH, it’s just like, just f—ing give it to Kamu again, I guess.” Closer than anyone – Kamu came second.
Angela, on her own chances: “God knows I’m not holding on that wall for very long. They know it and I know it. I’m jumping on my own free will.” She was the first to drop the last time she tried it.
And the one nobody in the house knew to watch for: Kamu had told Devens on Wednesday that if the comp structure allowed it, he intended to throw the HOH to Yash, because Yash’s stated targets would do the Red Corner’s work without costing them any blood. A wall is exactly the kind of comp where a player can come down without it looking deliberate. He didn’t. He went to the final two and lost it standing up.
Outside the house, the fans had their own board, and it was no better. The names coming up most were Mallory, the Blockbuster winner riding a wave of goodwill, and Taylor, fresh off her veto win, with Kamu picked as the physical favourite – one fan summing up the case as simply “he’s built for suffering.” Lala did not appear on it.
Feed coverage of the full night, the HOH room reveal and the nomination planning that followed is in our BB28 live feed updates.