The “Big Brother” trip through time has officially come to an end, with “Survivor” icon Rick Devens voted as the winner of Season 28.
Going into Thursday night’s 90-minute live finale, Taylor Brown and Devens had won the first two parts of the final Head of Household competition, leaving Drew Campbell’s fate in the hands of the third HoH winner.
Ultimately, Devens won the last game of the summer and chose to evict Campbell. Then, the jury of eliminated houseguests voted Devens as the winner 6-1 for the $750,000 prize. As the runner-up, Brown received $75,000.
Elsewhere in the finale, host Julie Chen Moonves also revealed Devens as America’s Favorite Houseguest via fan vote, winning an additional $50,000 over Campbell and Yash Patel. Additional highlights included Devens’ “betrayal” of Campbell, after Brown convinced him to evict his day-one ally because he wouldn’t have the votes to win otherwise, which sent Campbell to the jury in tears. The show also introduced the houseguests to Jason De Puy’s drag persona Salina EsTitties, “Drag Race” all star. Plus, Jack “Rome” Seymour and Lyric Medeiros are still in love — and close to moving in together.
This season also marked a special milestone for the competition series as it became the first primetime series to hit 1,000 episodes.
“I love the format, I love the gameplay, I love getting to know these houseguests for the summer. I love the fact that I love some of them, I love to hate some of them. I pretend I know how to play the game when I don’t have a clue how to do it,” George Cheeks, chair of TV Media at Paramount, previously said at the August celebration event. “But also, as the steward of CBS, what I love about this show is that you built and sustained water cooler TV. In spite of the fact that there’s so much audience fragmentation now, people are doing different things, there’s so much competition for mindshare, people still want to be part of the ‘Big Brother’ community.”
At the end of the finale, “Big Brother” was also renewed for Seasons 29 and 30, with casting already open for “BB29.” Makes sense, since “BB28” proved to be a ratings success, averaging 5.1 million multi-platform viewers — up 8% from last year.
See you next summer!
