‘Big Brother 25’s’ Jag on the moment he knew he was winning: ‘I sort of realized what was happening’
Suffice it to say, Jag Bains‘ run on “Big Brother 25” has rewritten the “Big Brother” annals. After becoming the first Sikh houseguest, he made history on Thursday’s finale by becoming the first Sikh winner with a 5-2 vote over his Minutemen ally Matt, the same person who used the Power of Invincibility to undo Jag’s 10-0 eviction in Week 4. That also makes Jag the first evicted the houseguest to return to the game and win the whole thing. And of course, there are the new single-season records he set along the way: the most Veto wins at seven and the most comp wins at 10. He set the last one during the finale when he won won Part 3 of the final HOH, after which he stayed loyal to Matt, taking him to the final two over the path of least resistance of Bowie Jane, and told Matt that he would win.
“I really did think … it would be an uphill battle for me sitting next to him instead of Bowie Jane,” Jag tells Gold Derby (watch above). “With my speeches and my answers, I was very passionate and I owned up to my game. That was me fighting to show everyone how I’ve played. I didn’t know if it swayed people enough, but I think the moment I actually felt like, ‘OK, I may have swayed some people’ is when people actually started casting their votes and were saying briefly who they cast their votes for. That’s when I realized. When Bowie Jane said, ‘I’m going to keep my word,’ that means she voted for me. She gave me her word that she would vote for me. As they gave their reasoning, I sort of realized what was happening.”
SEE ‘Big Brother 25’s’ Felicia: ‘I never understood why’ Cirie and Jared betrayed me
The 25-year-old gave very impassioned answers during the jury Q&A and his final speech, owning up to his game moves, which was ultimately what the jury wanted to hear after he had had a hand in all of their evictions, if not masterminded them. “This was my moment to own up to everything. A hundred days of me fighting so hard to get to this moment and I felt like I had fought so hard to be here and I didn’t know if the jury knew that. This was me showing them, ‘Look, this is everything I’ve done. I’ve worked so hard. I’m not just here by luck,'” he says. “I know that it came off really intense. I don’t regret it. … I just knew that was my only option. I had a lot of their blood on my hands and I could either cower away from that and pretend like I didn’t make those moves or I could fully own up to it and say, ‘Yes, this is the game I played and I simply outplayed you.'”
One pivotal moment was during the Q&A. After Matt stated that there was no leader between their duo, Jag said there was a leader: himself. “I did not know they were going to ask that question at all. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ But with all my answers, all I could do is be honest and my truth was that I felt like I led a lot of these moves, led a lot of the planning that went on,” he explains. “So that was my way of owning up to that. Yes, Matt and I have been loyal to each other, but we didn’t play the same game. And it was important for me to make that distinction.”
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?