Heading into the 25th episode of “Big Brother 26,” Joseph Rodriguez had just been evicted by a 4-to-3 vote over Kimo Apaka. That left just nine people still in the game, and all of them — aside from outgoing Head of Household Quinn Martin — were preparing to take part in the Week 8 HOH competition. So who ended up winning this week’s power, and which two houseguests did they nominate for eviction now that the A.I. Arena twist is over?
Below, read our minute-by-minute “Big Brother” Season 26, Episode 25 recap/live blog to find out what happened Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. Then be sure to sound off in the comments section about your favorite “BB26” houseguests on CBS‘s reality TV show, who annoys you the most and who you think will ultimately join the “Big Brother” winners list. Julie Chen Moonves once again hosts the series.
Here are the names of the nine remaining houseguests: Angela Murray, Cam Sullivan-Brown, Chelsie Baham, Kimo Apaka, Leah Peters, Makensy Manbeck, Quinn Martin, Rubina Bernabe and T’kor Clottey. Watch Gold Derby’s exclusive webchats with all of the eliminated players: Matt Hardeman, Lisa Weintraub, Kenney Kelley, Cedric Hodges, Brooklyn Rivera, Tucker Des Lauriers and Joseph Rodriguez.
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Keep refreshing/reloading this “Big Brother 26” live blog for the most recent updates.
9:00 p.m. – “Previously on ‘Big Brother’!” In the 24th episode, the three nominees competed in the A.I. Arena with Rubina pulling out a victory. Joseph and Kimo then scrambled for last-minute votes before the live voting took place. Makensy, T’Kor, Rubina and Chelsie ended up casting the four votes against Joseph, sending him home in a nail-biting decision. “I’m not angry, I’m surprised though,” Joseph told Julie during his exit interview. “A lot of people told me I was good that I thought would keep their word to me, so I’m really not sure what happened.” But enough about last week — it’s time to see who is crowned the latest Head of Household!
9:01 p.m. – Reactions from the houseguests following Joseph’s evictions were all over the place. Kimo and Rubina were obviously elated to still be in the house, but Chelsie was in tears despite voting Joseph out because she thought he deserved to make jury. Makensy and Chelsie both admitted in diary room sessions to being moved by Kimo’s speech pre-vote and that it swayed their decision to send Joseph home instead of Kimo as they planned.
9:03 p.m. – Because she was the one that used the veto, Leah felt responsible for her friend’s eviction, but it was one of Joseph’s “best friends” that put him on the block in the first place. Quinn was “disappointed” that for the second time in the game he was the HOH that reigned when one of his final two allies was evicted. He said it “really, really stings” for two of his HOHs to be “unsuccessful.”
9:06 p.m. – As one of the votes to evict Kimo, Angela felt it was her duty to apologize to him, explaining that she wasn’t aware there was enough numbers to save him and so she cast a vote against him in order to stay in the majority that she thought was happening. Kimo was not buying it and thought it was a “moment that you did get caught.”
9:08 p.m. – Chelsie felt it best to explain her decision to Cam because they were supposed to vote together and her vote put him on the wrong side of the vote this week. From Cam’s perspective, he thought she should have found a moment to cue to him that she was switching her vote so that he could make a decision accordingly. In the diary room, he said he’s “ready for war now” and declared that there’s “a different kind of Cam playing now.” Quinn hadn’t realized that Chelsie flipped until Cam told him, throwing him for a loop.
9:15 p.m. – In preparation for the next HOH comp, the houseguests received “Dine Cam” videos that showed food deliveries from front porches, including one from week 2 evictee Lisa Weintraub. Then, for the comp they had to answer “Before” or “After” questions about the videos with the most correct deciding who gets the ultimate power for the week. After two questions, Rubina fell behind everyone else with only one right. After six questions, Angela got her first two incorrect answers, falling in to last place with Rubina only one ahead of her and leaving everyone else tied for the lead. Then, in the final question, Leah and T’Kor answered incorrectly and missed the tie breaker to decide the winner.
9:26 p.m. – In the tiebreaker question, Chelsie was the closest without going over and so she was named Head of Household for the second time this season. Cam would have been the winner, but he incorrectly added an extra zero to his math and ended up way over.
9:29 p.m. – One of Chelsie’s first conversations was with Quinn because she wanted to reassure him that her vote to take out Joseph was not meant to isolate him and that she still has her back. He felt “pretty okay” with her sayin that she won’t put him on the block this week. After the conversation, she wanted to focus on “being really strategic in the second half” of her game and who her two nominees should be.
9:34 p.m. – Rolling over from last week, Chelsie was still concerned with what she perceived as a new strategy from Cam (her closest ally) to flirt with Makensy and Leah. And though he wasn’t flirting with her, Chelsie also eavesdropped on him talking to Angela and wondering why she was asking for him to speak to Chelsie on her behalf instead of doing it herself. When Angela finally got Chelsie alone, she insisted that Chelsie doesn’t have “slim pickings” for her nominees, but Chelsie’s thought is that Angela would be her only renom option and that would leave Angela with no option to save herself so instead she wants to nominate her outright so that she has a chance to win the veto. Chelsie gave her some tough love about using her age and status in the house to her advantage instead of letting it kill her spirit. But still, Angela got emotional over the realization that she was inevitably going to be nominated again.
9:45 p.m. – Chelsie’s motive in a one on one with T’Kor was to see if she’d be okay with her nominating Kimo as a pawn because putting him up against Angela, he can win and then he’d be banked with votes from T’Kor, Rubina and Makensy and then in the worst case, Chelsie would break the tie to save him. Surprisingly, T’Kor was not fully against the idea as long as they can solidify the votes to keep him in against anyone else. Later, Chelsie floated the idea to Kimo and his response was that he trusts Chelsie more than most other people that would ask the same favor of him.
9:48 p.m. – Leah attempted to commit to Chelsie that if/when she wins HOH she wouldn’t nominate her, but instead it seemed like it was a lot of indirect statements that worried Chelsie more than it made her feel comfortable. But later, she told Cam that she thinks Leah will target her and then asserted that Cam would vote to keep Leah over Chelsie. But Cam denied that because he said “Leah has shown she will do anything” that she wants when she has power. Cam was frustrated because trust issue was coming up after Chelsie broke his trust in the Joseph vote.
9:55 p.m. – At the nomination ceremony, Chelsie revealed the digital portraits of Kimo and Angela as her nominees. She restated that she wanted to give them a chance to play in the veto competition and asked that they don’t take it personal. In her diary room session, Chelsie said that Kimo is not the target and that she’s not worried if someone comes down because she has Leah as an option to go up as the replacement.