SPEECHES

​MIKE

First, I want to thank Branden for creating this game. I know it’s corny to say but I always wonder how things would be if I never found a link to apply to this game 5 years ago and I really can’t imagine what life would be like if I didn’t. This game has given me lifelong friends, gotten me through hard times, PUT me through hard times and brought me into a community of weird crazy people just like me. When you said you were bringing the game back for a winners season there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that my ass would come back regardless of how grim the outcome looked. I honestly can’t believe that I made it anywhere near the final 2 arguably being the biggest target based on my reputation. I wanted to prove that I was a different player this time around and I’d like to think I did that.  I’m happy I was able to come back and win 6 HoHs and 2 vetoes, controlling how the majority of the season went, but I’m even more happy to have mended some relationships that were left in a bad place a few years ago. I loved working with Zach and Jamie after having each other blocked for years and I’m happy we won’t block each other after this is over. I’m happy to be on good terms with Ashlee now and enjoyed our hour long Skype calls even though I knew she was always going to nominate me if she got the chance. I even enjoyed playing against Ryan in another game because if anyone else is as passionate about this game as me, it’s him. I’ve accomplished ALMOST everything I wanted to this season and more, now all I need is your jury vote.

As I said before, coming into this game I knew that I was going to be a massive target from the jump. My reputation joined with my competition prowess and having Mimi in here were going to make things very difficult for me so I wanted to have fun. I definitely didn’t want to be the first winner evicted so when I won HoH I was ecstatic. I nominated Alonzo because I knew he didn’t want to play much apparently and if he were to ever win HoH he would put me up. I put Ryan up because he was pregaming against me which started one of the inevitable main storylines of the season: Mike vs Ryan. When Ryan was taken down I had two options. I could make the gamebot move and nominate Ashlee who really wanted to be here, or Jim who didn’t seem to care all that much. I decided if I was this huge threat and likely to not be around much anyway, I might as well  keep someone in who really wants to play. This round I had an alliance with Jamie and Zach and after I named Jim as the replacement and said I wanted Alonzo evicted, they didn’t want to do it, and in my mind that alliance was not real. I knew that they were just aligned with me so I wouldn’t nominate them but if I was ever a final nominee I knew I couldn’t rely on Zach’s vote and likely couldn’t rely on Jamie’s vote. 

Going into the second week I knew Mimi or Trevor needed to win HoH to keep me safe so I was on call with them for it. Trevor wasn’t even looking at what the tweets were, he was just entering the answers as I said them. Luckily Trevor won and he set his sights on splitting Ryan and Jay. Following my logic of wanting people in here who wanted to play more I voted to evict Jay, even though Ryan was after me. I decided to test some people to see if they would evict Ryan to confirm loyalties, even thouh I knew the answer and when I saw how much support Ryan had I said SHIT. This man is not going anywhere any time soon.

Week 3 I won HoH again and nominated Alonzo and Ashlee. Ashlee for going against me wanting Alonzo evicted week 1 and Alonzo because I think we both always knew there was never any hope there. When Trevor won the veto he asked me what he should do because he wanted to save one, but wouldn’t if that’s not what I wanted. I knew that if nominees stayed the same that Ashlee would leave and from past experience Alonzo is faster in comps so I wanted him evicted. Trevor then saved Ashlee and I pretended to Jamie and Zach that I didn’t know that would happen and I was mad at him so it would cause a divide between them and possibly keep the heat off of me. I decided to name Ryan as the replacement nominee because after last round I knew he would make a good pawn. Ashlee and Trevor made themselves big targets by campaigning for Alonzo, but Alonzo left anyway and I got my way.

When Ryan won the HoH in the double I knew that I could have been in trouble, but luckily forcing Trevor’s hand the previous round by making him a target got him and Ashlee nominated and I knew that even if I was backdoored that I would be saved by the spare veto. Ryan won the veto and attempted to backdoor me but Mimi saved me and Ryan put Eddie up as a pawn. I used my spare vote to keep Trevor in the game and unfortunately Eddie had to go.

I won HoH the following week and nominated Ryan and Lauren because Ryan put me up and Lauren was the only person I wasn’t ‘aligned’ with. I was afraid to keep Lauren up there because she was a juicy evictee to keep the Ryan/Mike feud going. I knew that I wanted Zach next to Ryan as the final nominees because while Ryan had been a good pawn the previous rounds, Zach was an even more powerful one with support from both Jamie and Ashlee. Luckily I was able to make that happen and Ryan was evicted. 

Ashlee won the next HoH and I knew instantly that she was putting myself and Mimi on the block. I knew that this wasn’t the right game move in a normal season, but in a season where I was a huge comp threat she had to take her shot. Luckily she missed and I lost my closest ally EVER, Mimi. In this round, Trevor promised Ashlee that he wouldn’t vote Lauren out so my ass MADE SURE that he did because I was afraid Trevor was growing closer to her. Luckily he did and that caused some distrust I would be able to manipulate later.

I won the next HoH and set my sights on Ashlee. When she won the veto I knew that whoever my replacement nominee would be evicted. I so badly wanted to put Lauren up because I didn’t feel that she should be playing when she wasn’t putting in the effort. I thought out loud a lot in my DR after she won about what to do, but eventually decided both Zach and Jamie shouldn’t get a free pass for evicting Mimi so I put Jamie on the block.

Final 5 was probably THE MOST SCARED I was the entire game. Trevor had the power to make a huge move and send me home, but the work that I put in all game finally paid off. After he won I had to convince him to nominate Ashlee. I told him that she didn’t trust him anymore anyway because he went against her wishes and voted Mimi out and she would likely nominate me and him anyway. After some pushing he decided I was right and nominated her against Zach. Ashlee won the veto that round and if I hadn’t pushed for that distrust and wasn’t on the phone with him pushing to nominate Ashlee I would be out at 5th place. I really wanted to vote Lauren out because I thought Zach deserved to go on, but he started performing well in the competitions and I just couldn’t have that anymore.

I won the Final 4 HoH and secured my spot in the final 3. I almost wanted to throw the veto, but I am too competitive to not try and I won, forcing Trevor to make the decision of who to vote out. He decided to evict the last threat besides me in Ashlee because I knew he was planning to cut me if he won the final HoH.

I won the final HoH and had a huge decision. I could have taken the easy way out and taken Lauren, or I could have remained loyal to Trevor, even if he wasn’t planning on being loyal to me. After I took him to final 2 I asked him if he would have evicted me and he said he wasn’t sure which means YES. Luckily I won and prevented him from doing that and I’m sitting here. 

I know that winning competitions isn’t everything in Big Brother, but that was the hand I was dealt from the start. With those wins, I was still able to make powerful moves and create and split bonds that could have prevented me from getting here. I’d like to think I’ve grown a lot since RRBB ended as a player and a person. I hope that you can reward that and the game that I have played. Thank you all for coming back and making this experience fun.

I’m happy to answer any and all of your questions and I respect whatever decision you make.

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TREVOR

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I wanted to start off by saying thank you to Branden for bringing this game back for all of us crazies to play again - it has been an insane ride, but I have enjoyed every breakdown, laugh, and stress sweat that this game has given me over the last two weeks. 

Now, onto why I think I deserve to win over Mike. I would appreciate it if every Jury member could just take a second to clear your head and not think about any past game, or any history that could influence a decision tonight. It would mean a lot to me if you just think solely on this game and the performance of Mike and I in this game only. Mike has a reputation of being a manipulator and a comp threat, while many of you would say "who the fuck is that" about me before you actually played with me. If you are thinking that the newbie should have cut the manipulative comp threat long ago then you are already being biased towards me (which you are allowed to do if that is what you want do), but I am hoping you can have an open mind and not be biased. Everyone could have had the point of view of being against Mike and try to tell me I “should have gotten him out”, but look where I am sitting now. I am next to someone who I feel might be extremely strong competitively but lacked socially and wasn’t a fully rounded player. I feel like I was able to take advantage of his competition wins and use them for my benefit. I already know he is going to try and discredit every single thing I did, or say that he was one step ahead of me but I knew that working with someone like him that I have to be alert at all times and assume the worst. I was not naive to the fact that he was doing things behind my back.

The second thing I am going to say is that I am a firm believer that all decisions and happenings in a game are not based on one person. Everything that I did, and everything that anyone did couldn't have been done by just one person. If you are reading my speech and ever feel like I am "claiming" something that I shouldn't be - just know I am not claiming to be the single reason that certain things happened. I am just explaining my strategic part in some decisions which may or may have not influenced the outcome of some moves. I am not a know-it-all, and the moves that I made were not possible without other people. I believe that about Mike's moves as well. You might read things below and think "that's not the full story or not fully what happened" - just know I am going to explain things from my perspective and I am not claiming to know the whole story. Mike didn't know the whole story either.

You might think that Mike cares about this game more than me because he knows the history and gets really excited and passionate about this game, but I just want you to know that I care about RRBB very much as well and feel very lucky to be here. I don't know all of the history and who/what came before me but I have learned a lot while being in this all winners season and I feel so grateful and special that I am apart of it. It would be a total honour to win a second time, especially with this being only my second time playing. 

The biggest points that I want to make and what I feel like are the top reasons that I believe I should win RRBB Champions are:

1. I gave every single player a chance in this game, and tried to make daily conversations with everyone. I wasn't perfect, and communication is a two way street, but I felt that it was important for me to try my best to build bonds with every single person if they were willing to build one with me. I came into this game only playing with Mike before this and no one else. I have heard many things about many people before this game but I made sure to throw it all out of the window and give everyone a chance because I treat every single game as a fresh start. I even tried messaging some of the less active people every day just to try and find out more about them. Do you guys know what Lauren's job is? Some of you might, but I found out she is a Reality TV producer, which I think is sweet and something that I found out just by talking to her. I didn't take a single one of you for granted. I think Mike's biggest flaw is that he overlooks certain people and didn't feel like talking to them or that building a bond was important. Now, for example, this could be information that he was just feeding me, but he told me he basically never spoke a word to Alonzo all game, along with a few other people. I always thought that it was baffling and I actually made it my own mission to try and talk to Alonzo as much as possible when I found this out. To me, it was clear that Mike and Alonzo were not going to talk, so if Alonzo were to win an HOH I wanted to make sure I was covered. This leads into my second point.

2. I tried my very best to cover my ass with the people that Mike was not good with, essentially playing both sides for my own benefit only. I think that this is an extremely important point. Aligning with a competition threat like Mike can be devastating for anyone’s game - as if you are pinned as a pair and you get nominated with him, he is likely to win the veto and you stay up on the block and get evicted. Essentially exactly what happened to Mimi. I did not want this to happen to me, and even though I knew it was likely that Mimi and Mike would be nominated in most scenarios if someone did win an HOH - I wanted to try my hardest to not be that third nominee. This is why I would try to make genuine friendships with people such as Ashlee, Alonzo, and Ryan (the bigger competition threats once Jay left). I genuinely like all three of those people and I didn't let Mike's preferences or recommendations influence me. Of course, all of these relationships ended up coming crashing down for various reasons - Alonzo ended up leaving fairly early which I was disappointed about. With Ryan, things were constantly going downhill due to my decisions, but I didn't let it stop me from trying to get something going. Even after I nominated him I had a call with him to try and smooth things over just in case he won HOH. It might not have been effective (I don't know what he would have done week 3 if he won) but I still tried. Then there was Ashlee who was a critical and very important factor in my game. I obviously burned her in the end which I don't feel good about - but my bond with her did save me from not only being the re-nominee on her HOH week when Mimi left, but also she was a vote for me to stay against Eddie. I know that Jamie and Zach let me know they would have kept me if they knew better - but the fact is you guys didn't, while because of my bond with Ashlee I assume she would have felt too bad to just vote me out and that saved me. Ashlee was also a great source of information for me as she told me things that Mike would leave out - such as the Jamie/Zach/Mike/Mimi chat and the "premade alliance" (not sure how real it ended up being, from what I heard it was mainly just what Ryan hoped for?) of Ryan/Jay/Zach/Jamie. The moral of the story of this point is that I didn't just sit under a rock and listen to everything that Mike did or told me - I found my own friends and found out information another way because Mike and Mimi didn't tell me as much as I would have liked. They told me some, and some was useful, but not as much as Ashlee told me. 

3. I was very open minded and played this game socially and competitively, not just competitively like Mike. Sure he won a lot of comps and never was up when it was time to vote for eviction, but I don't see his social game at all and thought it was very weak. If he WERE to be up for eviction at any time - he would have left. This could be said about me as well (we won't fully know in what scenarios I would have stayed or left) but I did survive eviction one time. That save was due to Mike, Ashlee, and Mimi of course - because of my loyalty to them. Mike/Mimi and Ashlee came together when they normally might not have in order to save me because they felt I was good for their games at the time. Some could say that I am only here because of Mike's power to trash a vote - which is a true statement - but if you think like that then there are numerous times that Mike might not have been around either if it were not for me. Final 5 is the most recent example, but if I didn't win the second week HOH we have no idea what Ryan or Jay would have done (they were second in the competition). This relates to what I said earlier, in that I feel like every move was made with help and everyone gets to where they are with help. Going back to the open minded part - I always had an open mind and gave people a chance to try and show me that our bond meant something (even if I was quickly to trash it to the side, sorry Ashlee). For example, Mike would always say things such as "are you really THAT close with Ashlee?" "She will for sure vote you out in F4" "She will nominate you next to Mimi". These are just random examples - he played this game very closed minded and just ASSUMED people would put him and Mimi up, and/or me and him once she left. He was closed off that it forced him to HAVE to win every competition possible in order to stay in the game. Was he truly playing socially and for the long haul when in week 1 he told Ashlee that she would go up, and then decided to not do it? I thought that was very poor gameplay because it made Ashlee want to go after Mike and made her uneasy. It was just a full out mistake - he didn't try to salvage bonds with people, and he had no interest in betting on peoples willingness to treat each week/situation differently like I did. I didn't HAVE to win every competition and In fact even threw some at crucial times when winning would actually hurt me. The most important competition that I threw was the guess who competition. Not only did Mike offer to help and I quickly did the competition when he was sleeping on purpose, but the two questions I asked were "Is this person F3" and "Do they have an A in their name". The answers were yes F3 and No for the A - if you go back to the board there was only 2 people that fit this and it was Kit and Jen meaning I could have gotten this in 3-4 tries to beat or tie Ashlee. Throwing this competition was crucial for me because Ashlee, Zach, Jamie all mentioned going for Mike and Mimi.  I came up with the excuse that I thought Connor was a different Connor in the guess who comp and it worked. I knew that a hit had to be made on them and it didn't matter to me who left between the two of them. All I knew that at that time going forward with both Mike and Mimi was not what I wanted to do because they would always pick each other over me. Taking one out at F7 was critical for me going forward, but I couldn’t be the one to do it as the other one would feel betrayed and I was only truly close to Ashlee besides them. 

4. The last note I have is that I always put myself in a situation where I would be able to survive the following week (not just through competitions), as I was always thinking ahead. For example, I helped Lauren with the F4 HOH in hopes that she could win it. She ended up being in the tiebreaker with Mike and only seconds away from beating him. She might have been able to do that by herself – I don’t know how good her notes where – but I tried my best to help her. I did this because I wanted Me/Mike/Ashlee to be the vulnerable ones. I knew that I couldn’t have TWO competition threats in the F3 as I wanted to be able to try and win the F3 HOH myself. I also did this because I knew Mike would vote Ashlee out and Ashlee would vote Mike out. As much as I want to believe that Ashlee said she would have voted out Lauren (maybe she would have! I don’t know), I didn’t like the idea of having Lauren as a possible person against me on the block if Mike or I didn’t win F4 veto. This obviously failed as Lauren didn’t win HOH – but the point is that I TRIED to do something, I didn’t just sit there. I was always trying to set myself up perfectly. I didn’t get the F3 HOH like I wanted, but I would have set myself up in the best possible scenario if I did – which is take Lauren. It isn’t because I am scared of losing to Mike – I think I deserve to give him a run for his money, but because I want to win and taking Lauren to me would have been an easier pathway (which I was always looking for). Maybe she would have won, I don’t know, but I like to think she wouldn’t have. I have to thank Mike for taking me here, but I am hoping that this was him being cocky thinking he can beat anyone. Was it a crucial mistake? You tell me. 

The last thing that I felt was me trying to set myself up (which also failed, but I was TRYING) was when I was working closely with Ashlee to try and vote Ryan out and keep Alonzo. I used the veto and Mike instantly went into a “I didn’t want to do this” mode almost like blaming me and painting me and Ashlee together – I recognized this right away that he was trying to make me look bad for this decision. I was nervous that Ryan would believe him, or think at the very least, that I attempted to backdoor with Mike. It was fishy as Mike was very supportive of me using the veto on Ashlee (we had a private call before I did it) and then seconds later he acted shocked and played that up with people and wanted ALONZO to leave. I knew that I had to at least TRY to get Ryan out since in my eyes I was scared of what Ryan would think of me and didn’t want to just get rid of Alonzo who I liked more and who was good for my game because I trusted him. This didn’t work out which sucked, but I still made it here despite my mistakes and I want it known that I was aware Mike was actively trying to put people against me or keep me away from other people, but I didn’t let it happen as much as he would have liked it to happen. 

Lastly, I haven’t mentioned some people in the jury enough and I just wanted to say that Jamie/Zach I always liked you and enjoyed our conversations. With Zach, I could tell that there was some sort of disconnect there and we would never talk game. I should have tried opening up more but I was okay with just being civil to both of you for the time being as I didn’t want to seem TOO sneaky since I was playing behind the scenes with Mike/Mimi and then Ashlee as well. I think working with you two could have been interesting but it just didn’t work out for us. 

Eddie – I didn’t really get to know you as much as I would have liked. You were busy, I was busy, and we ended up on the block together. I always did try and talk to you or keep the conversation going even though I wasn’t perfect at it and hid on my busy days. Our games paths didn’t end up crossing but I can tell you would have been interesting to work with. 

Jay – I remember you cheered for me in my RRBB season. I had no idea who you were at the time but I thought it was cool that you were cheering for me since not many people were. I’ve never really talked to you much before but throughout the years I always saw you around and thought you were a jokester kind of guy. I’m sorry if my crystal ball speech truly did offend you – but I was just trying to have some fun. It was probably my worst social game move saying that to you in my nominations and calling you out wasn’t fun – I didn’t want to be the pussy screenshot guy but I was. I had to take you out not only because of your reaction after being nominated but also just because of how good of a competition threat you were and we didn’t talk enough for me to be okay with you winning comps. 

Jim – I enjoyed our conversations early on but with your game being cut short so quickly our paths didn’t really cross either. I’m glad I at least learned a bit about you though – you can’t say I didn’t try. Lawyers are hot!

Ashlee/Ryan/Alonzo/Mimi/Lauren I mentioned you quite a bit in my speech but if you want a paragraph about you let me know in your question J

Thank you everyone for reading this far – and I truly hope that you realize I was more of a rounded player than Mike was, and that he might look good with all of these competition wins but he wasn’t playing – he was just winning. Maybe it would have been a pussy move to take Lauren – he claims he isn’t scared of being against me. I think he should be. He kept me over loyalty and I have to appreciate and respect that – but this is a game. He didn’t set himself up to 100% win with his decision to keep me.

Think about your decision wisely and don’t let Mike’s speech paint me as some loser who he manipulated throughout the season. I wasn’t manipulated and made sure every decision I made benefit myself and not him. The move that the most of you might criticize the most is keeping him at F5, but this was the best way for me to get to F2 instead of leaving Ashlee/Zach in as a pair where I didn’t know what they would do 100%, while I trusted Mike (rightfully so because I am here) to get me here. Yes, he is harder to beat, but I played closely with him and know that I actually played this game instead of just winning out so I wanted to take that risk. I didn’t actually plan on sitting next to him in final 2, I would have taken Lauren as mentioned before so I am actually shocked that I am sitting here right now, but hoping to be very pleased and that Mike made a big mistake by taking me. Lauren very well could have beat me – I don’t want to be cocky there – but I would have had an easier time fighting this final battle against her than I am right now against Mike so I would have done that if I had the chance. I know it didn’t happen, but I wanted it known that I wasn’t just blindly walking to F2 with him because that is an important fact. If anything, I should get props for him taking me and taking a risk instead of taking Lauren who might have been easier to beat to the F2.

I feel like I have so much more to say, I could run through every single week with you and what I did or what I said, but I will cut it off here and answer your questions. Don’t be scared to ask hard ones (I already know you won’t be scared though, iconic bitches).

Thanks