big brother 25

Jag won Big Brother 25, beating Matt 5-2 after surviving a unanimous eviction that was cancelled seconds before he walked out the door. The season ran a hundred days and is remembered for the Multiverse twists that repeatedly stopped the game dead.

• Aired: August to November 2023, on CBS.
• Premiere: 2 August 2023.
• Finale: 9 November 2023 — Day 100.
• Winner: Jag.
• Runner-up: Matt.
• Third place: Bowie Jane.
• Final vote: 5-2.
• Houseguests: 17 — sixteen announced, plus a seventeenth revealed on premiere night.
• Prize: $750,000 to the winner, $75,000 to the runner-up.
• America’s Favourite: Cameron, $50,000.
• Length: 100 days and 42 episodes — the longest US season to that point.
• The theme: The Big Brother Multiverse.

Who won Big Brother 25?

Jag won Big Brother 25, beating Matt by a jury vote of 5-2 on 9 November 2023. Bowie Jane, America, Blue, Cory and Cameron voted for Jag. Cirie and Felicia voted for Matt.

He should not have been there to win it. In week 4 Jag was voted out 10-0 — unanimous, no debate. The result was announced, he picked up his bag and started for the door. Only then did Matt play the Power of Invincibility, and the eviction was cancelled while Jag was still on his feet. Nobody left the house that week.

What followed is the most lopsided endgame run the show has produced. Jag won seven Power of Veto competitions, two Heads of Household, and both of the final Head of Household rounds that mattered. He took the last four vetoes of the season in consecutive weeks.

The final Head of Household came down to a tiebreaker. Jag and Matt tied 5-5 in part three, and the question was how long part one had lasted. The true answer was 176 minutes. Matt guessed 140. Jag guessed 163, took the win, and evicted Bowie Jane.

Then he gave a jury speech that nobody expected from him.

Afterwards he was more measured about it. “I will never stand here and claim that I was the best player in the house at the beginning of the game,” he said. “I frankly think I sucked. I’m very self-aware of that. I think I was a dumb player, but for me, I became more and more intentional.”

Matt, asked what cost him: “I believe that I had a better social game with the jury and everyone in the house, but Jag ultimately had a better competitive strategic game.” Cameron, from the jury, was blunter — Jag “walked the whole thing home,” and Matt “should have taken a lot more credit.”

Who was in the Big Brother 25 cast?

Sixteen houseguests moved in. A seventeenth was revealed on premiere night. In finishing order:

• 1st — Jag. Seven vetoes, two Heads of Household, and the first houseguest to win the game after being unanimously voted out of it.
• 2nd — Matt. Won the Power of Invincibility and spent it on Jag, which decided the season.
• 3rd — Bowie Jane. Three Heads of Household, two of them won on tiebreakers.
• 4th — Felicia. Nominated more often than anyone and outlasted almost all of them.
• 5th — Cirie. The seventeenth houseguest, and Jared’s mother.
• 6th — America. Out in the second half of the week 12 double eviction.
• 7th — Blue. Won the second veto of Comic Week and used it on herself.
• 8th — Cory. Evicted at the end of Comic Week.
• 9th — Cameron. Evicted twice. Came back once. First juror, and America’s Favourite.
• 10th — MEME. The last houseguest evicted before jury.
• 11th — Jared. Voted out in the week 7 double, came back as a zombie, and lost the competition that would have kept him.
• 12th — Izzy. Worked out the mother-and-son secret on night one and kept it.
• 13th — Red. Won a veto and did not use it.
• 14th — Hisam. Won back-to-back competitions in week 2 and was gone by week 3.
• 15th — Reilly. The first Head of Household, evicted the following week.
• 16th — Kirsten. First evicted, 13-0.
• 17th — Luke. Expelled on Day 8.

The expulsion

Luke was removed from the house on 9 August 2023, eight days in, for using a racial slur on the live feeds. The houseguests were told by a note read aloud in the house: “Due to violating the Big Brother code of conduct by using a racial slur, Luke has been removed from the house and will no longer be participating in the Big Brother game. The game goes on, and the live vote and eviction will continue as scheduled.”

The network’s own statement was equally short: the code of conduct had been violated, and “there is zero tolerance in the house for using a racial slur.”

Cirie and Jared

Jared was announced as one of the sixteen. Cirie walked in on premiere night as a seventeenth houseguest — and the audience was told immediately that she was his mother. The house was not.

It held for almost the whole season, but not because nobody noticed. Izzy recognised Jared within days, pulled him aside, asked him outright, and agreed to keep it quiet. Jared later told Blue himself, deliberately, in late August. Those two were the only houseguests who knew while he was still in the game.

What was the Big Brother Multiverse?

The Multiverse was Big Brother 25’s season-long theme: four parallel “verses” that supplied the competitions, punishments and twists week by week. They were the Comic-verse, the Humili-verse, the Scary-verse and the Scramble-verse.

It was set up before the season started. A promo released in late July showed three former houseguests breaking into the house with a fictional “Time Laser,” meaning to go back and rewrite their own seasons. It went wrong, and what they actually did was crack the house open into four universes. The premiere then explained the four verses to the cast.

The premiere itself was built from them. There was no opening Head of Household competition. Instead four groups each played a competition from a different verse — Puzzling Headlines, Kicking Butt, Goo-Pocalypse and Hold On Fright — and the loser of each became a nominee. That put Jared, Kirsten, Felicia and Cory on the block before anyone had won anything.

Reilly then won the first Head of Household and was given a power nobody had held before: not the right to nominate, but the right to remove two of the four. She took Jared and Cory off, leaving Felicia and Kirsten.

The Power of Invincibility

The most consequential thing that happened all season. In week 4 an audience vote chose four houseguests — Cirie, Cory, Jag and Matt — to secretly compete in a competition called Power Path, running a ball down a narrow winding board into a target. Matt won it with the fastest time, 45 seconds.

The power could cancel an eviction, and crucially it worked after the vote. Jag was voted out 10-0. The result was read out. He was on his way to the door when the power activated and the eviction was voided. He stayed, and there was no eviction that week at all.

One knock-on effect: because Cameron’s Head of Household reign had produced no eviction, he was allowed to compete in the next one.

What was the zombie twist in Big Brother 25?

In the week 7 double eviction on 21 September, Cameron and Jared were both voted out — and neither of them left. They were told their games might not be over, and came back into the house as BB Zombies, in torn clothes, to live alongside the people who had just voted them out.

Then the game stopped. For a full week there was no Head of Household, no nomination ceremony, no veto and no eviction. Nothing happened except the zombies.

The Resurrection Rumble ran across three rounds for cumulative points. Round one finished tied. Cameron led after round two and won round three — which did not put him back in the house. It gave him a choice: attempt the final all-or-nothing task himself, or make Jared do it.

He took it himself, completed it inside the time limit, and was back in the game on 28 September. Jared was eliminated for good, and because it happened before the jury phase began, he never sat on the jury.

Cameron lasted two more weeks. He was backdoored on 12 October and evicted 6-0, and became the first juror — the only houseguest in the season’s history to be evicted, return, and be evicted again.

It is not remembered fondly. A week in which the game does not move is a hard week to defend, and the criticism at the time was about pacing rather than fairness. Julie’s own line when she introduced it — “I’ve been waiting 25 seasons to finally say those words” — did not survive contact with what followed.

What happened in Comic Week?

Comic Week arrived in week 11, announced on the 12 October live show, and it carried two powers.

• The Power of Invisibility. Jag won the Head of Household in an eight-and-a-half-minute BB Comics competition, and his identity as Head of Household was formally hidden. He nominated Blue and Felicia anonymously. The secrecy was production-enforced even though he told people himself and the house worked it out fast. The part that actually mattered: it let him play in the next Head of Household despite being the outgoing one — and he won that too.
• The Power of Multiplicity. Two veto competitions, two medallions, two separate decisions. All eight remaining houseguests played the first; the winner was then barred from the second. Jag won the first and Blue won the second. Blue used hers on herself and America went up. Jag used his on Felicia and Cory went up. Both original nominees came off the block at the same ceremony.

Cory was evicted 5-0 at the end of it. Julie’s read on the invisibility power beforehand was that it would “spread a lot of paranoia,” and that the house would work out who it was from the nominations. She was right on the second half.

Who won each HOH, veto and eviction in Big Brother 25?

Fourteen weeks. Week 8 had no competitions at all, and week 4 produced no eviction.

What is Big Brother 25 remembered for?

Three things, and only one of them is a compliment.

The winner who was already evicted. Jag is the first houseguest in the show’s history to win after being voted out unanimously. He was 10-0 gone, bag in hand, and a power played after the vote put him back. Then he won seven vetoes. It is the single strangest route to $750,000 the show has produced.

The week where nothing happened. Zombie Week took a season that had just produced a genuinely good double eviction and put it in neutral for seven days. No Head of Household, no nominations, no veto, no eviction. The season never fully recovered its momentum, and that is the criticism that has stuck to it.

The length. At 100 days and 42 episodes it was the longest US season to that point, and it started in August rather than July, which pushed the finale into November. Ratings were down on the season before it — an average of just over three million against BB24’s three and a half.

Records and firsts

• Longest US season to that point — 100 days, 42 episodes.
• First winner to have already been unanimously evicted — Jag, 10-0 in week 4.
• First Sikh houseguest to win the US series.
• Seven vetoes in a season — Jag, including the last four in a row.
• First expulsion for a racial slur under the stated zero-tolerance rule.
• Only merged OTEV and Zingbot competition — OTEV the Zinging Robot, week 10.
• A full week with no Head of Household, nominations, veto or eviction — week 8.

Big Brother 25 live feed updates, week by week

We covered this season live from the feeds every night. These are our posts from the night each result happened.

• Cast: Meet the all-new cast of Big Brother 25
• Premiere: Episode one, and the Multiverse revealed
• Week 1: Kirsten evicted 13-0
• The expulsion: Luke removed from the house
• Week 2: Reilly evicted 12-0
• Week 3: Hisam evicted 11-0
• Week 4: Jag evicted 10-0 — and saved
• Week 5: Red evicted 8-2
• Week 6: Izzy evicted 8-1
• Week 7: Cameron and Jared out in the double eviction
• Week 8: Zombie week, and Cameron’s return
• Week 9: MEME evicted 7-0
• Week 10: Cameron evicted a second time as Comic Week begins
• Week 11: Cory evicted 5-0
• Week 12: Blue and America out in the second double eviction
• Week 13: Cirie evicted 2-0
• Week 14: Jag evicts Felicia at the final four
• Finale: Jag wins Big Brother 25