Summer is officially over now that “Big Brother” Season 26 has come to an end, with Chelsie Baham winning the 90-day CBS competition series by a 7-0 vote over runner-up Makenzy Manbeck.
For the last three months, 16 houseguests took turns playing games and evicting each other one by one until only the Final 2 remained, leaving a jury of their peers to ultimately crown the best player with a $750,000 prize on Sunday night.
As of Monday morning, 27-year-old Chelsie told TheWrap that she is still “on top of the world” and grateful for the “absolutely insane” experience. “This ‘Big Brother’ fan is going crazy,” as she put it — but that’s a detail about herself she made sure to keep quiet from her fellow contestants.
“I think people started to catch on that I understood this game way better than I put off. Anybody who showed that they really knew the game and they were a fan, that was also a reason for them to be a threat,” she said. “I said I was a fan, but I didn’t really let people know how much I’ve studied this game, and that was intentional.”
As a longtime fan of the game, Chelsie knew she had to tailor her playing style to suit the type of people whom she was playing against.
“Throughout the season, there were some votes that were personal and there are some that were strategic. But when it got closer down to the line, I read our cast; our cast was more emotional, so I knew, let me lean more on the personal side, more so on the social side, but yet still have in my pocket a résumé of competitions,” she explained. “Going into this house and seeing how emotional our cast was, I did want to have 60% a social game and 40% a competitive and strategic game. So I read the room and if you read the room, you can determine what type of game you need to play.”
While the non-profit director from Rancho Cucamonga made sure to give credit to Rubina, Tucker, Kimo and T’kor for that pre-jury vote flip that sent Cedric packing (and made this season one of the best ever), there was a different person she saw as her biggest competition.
“I thought Leah was a threat. Leah had a personal relationship with every single person in the house, everybody felt guilty for even bringing up Leah’s name as a topic of conversation to put on the block. She got way emotional whenever she was even considered and she was cool with everybody,” Chelsie shared. “So I knew, because we had a social cast, that Leah was one of the stronger ones. And anybody going 10 weeks not being a nom or arena is a good player.”
And after spending the last 90 days in near-total isolation taking part in pop culture, she’s also quickly finding out which moments she missed out on.
“One that is disappointing to me, but not necessarily shocking, is J.Lo and Ben,” Chelsie said, of the big-profile divorce. “I know we saw it coming, but I was rooting for them, ‘We were all rooting for you.’“
In addition to Chelsie’s historic win, Makenzy earned $75,000 for second place, while Tucker walked away with the title of America’s Favorite Houseguest and the $50,000 prize that comes with it over Quinn and Angela (making him the first pre-juror to ever get that distinction). Plus, host Julie Chen Moonves confirmed “Big Brother” will be back next summer for Season 27.
“Big Brother” is available to stream on Paramount+.
