‘Big Brother 24’: Taylor on Winning After Being Told to Be ‘Nice,’ Her Brittany Regret, and Crushes in the House
Big Brother 24 cemented its place in Big Brother history with a historic win. Showbiz Cheat Sheet talked to Taylor Hale about the hard road to the finale on Zoom on Sept. 28, 2022.
Taylor on navigating microaggressions on ‘Big Brother 24’
Q: Speaker 1: Jumping in to your game, I do want to talk about the microaggressions. As a Black woman watching, I tuned into it. One that you really picked up on was the word “nice” and how people were using it. You talked to Kyle [Capener] about how it was triggering for him to say, ‘What if you’re sending a nice girl home?’ when talking about Alyssa [Snider] . And Monte [Taylor], when he wanted to talk about things going left with you guys were saying, ‘Why not be nice?’ Can you talk about overcoming this perception of not being the nice girl and getting this win?
Taylor: Well, it’s funny because as everyone else was able to see, I was just consistently nice and kind and I even had a larger conversation about how I think there’s a difference between being kind or nice. Kind comes from the heart. Nice is how it is perceived. So if you’re being nice, you’re doing it so that people think that there’s intention for people to think that you are one way. But if you’re kind, it’s just a matter of who you are.
And when we talk about just wanting women to be nice, so much of that is really boiling down to, I just want you to be digestible. I just want you to be palatable. And there’s so much about me that is not palatable. I am a very confident person. I can be bold, sometimes brash, definitely brazen. And, you know, I’m never given, it’s very rare that I’m given the opportunity to have those aspects of me that are very strong and powerful to also equal niceness or kindness, which is more important to me.
So when you have people who do not look like me, who are in the house, who make a mistake that people know you should never make in the game of Big Brother, make a very easily evictable offense that could make my entire alliance just have a very easy week. It’s very frustrating to have people just rally so hard for them because there are so many opportunities in this house where I was never given the benefit to just be nice and in other aspects with Monte. That conversation I had, you know, it took a lot for us to grow from where we started in the game to where we were at that point in the game as friends. I was really excited to reach that point with him.
So for him to so quickly revert into wanting to push me back into a smaller position, I grew larger as a more bold. I took up more space and I think he was threatened by the fact that I was taking up so much space. So he was insinuating, you need to be smaller, you need to go back to what I’m more comfortable with. And, you know, luckily enough, at that point in the game, I had enough under my belt to say, no, I’m not going to just be nice anymore.
Taylor regrets how she handled Brittany in the end
Q: I think the needing for you to shrink came up a lot for fans to see. One thing that I personally think of, with this is Brittany [Hoopes]. She was a very good ally to you and friend. But I think sometimes when it came to the gameplay and when your position ever was better than her, things were seeping out. Brittany told Michael she thought you were making moves for TV. She said you were having convos as HOH on your bed for people to look up at you, and she flipped that split vote on you, hoping you’d go home. She claims it’s because she could beat Alyssa, which is probably true. But it over looks that she was throwing away an ally who was still fighting for her to stay over Matt “Turner” Turner. She was more focused on you talking to her less that final 5 week. How aware were you of Brittany’s feelings, and how do you feel about knowing this information now?
Taylor: This is the first time hearing a lot of this information. But I will say when you’re in the Big Brother house, it’s very easy to put yourself in a position where you are afraid that your allies are slipping away from you. And I will own that I did not continue to communicate with Brittany. Hey, I’m going to create distance so I can work this side of the house.
That is one of my biggest regrets in the game because Brittany has been one of my strongest allies from jump. And you will see, I’m sure it is out there. Even when I felt distance from her, even when I wasn’t sure if I believed that she was actually turning on me or not, I still said ‘Well, moving forward with her in the game is so good for my game. So I’m still going to stick to this mission anyway.’ I understand the frustration and the paranoia because that’s just the nature of the house. And you know, at the end of this, Brittany is still my friend and Brittany and I are going to have a lifelong friendship, which I know is going to make some people frustrated.
But I think she just vocalized the moments where she was more insecure about a relationship or friendship or standing in the game. But there were plenty of times where I felt the same way. I think I was just bullied or ostracized more in the house where people were more willing to see that and validate my perspective. Whereas I was so loyal to Brittany and it was very obvious from a fan’s perspective, that I didn’t go the extra mile to help her in the last few days of the game, and that’s when it gets even more intense.
Taylor answers if her Daniel crush was genuine
Q: You told the ladies you had a crush on Daniel [Durston] to bond with them, but how much was picking Daniel genuine or like this is lower threat level than like any of the women turning on you?
Taylor: You know, that was just me having been sequestered and seeing somebody who probably would’ve given it a little bit earlier. And I apparently, I was not too far off in this assumption because I heard he had a little ranking of the hottest girls in the house, and I was number two. A low number two, apparently. But, you know. It gets rough. Those early days, you’re just like, OK, who am I being set up for? What’s supposed to be a match? I’m single there’s other single people. What’s going to happen here? Clearly, not that one.
Q: Moving on to Monte. Did there need to be another break up talk after the finale or did you guys move and like, ‘We had the conversation. We’re good’?
Taylor: Yeah, we had the conversation, I think. I think there’s a lot that Monte and I will have to have some conversations about and I think we also kind of knew what it was when we were getting into it. Monte is someone who I thought was a friend in the house, and we’ll have to reexamine our friendship based on what I learn about both of our times in the game. But for where we were, we just realized we weren’t a match, but we were getting what we needed from each other then.
Taylor on not wanting to be dragged by a man
Q: You didn’t want to be dragged to the end by a man. But you won that HOH that already got you to the finale. So in my perspective there was no dragging there. But why were you fearful of that perception?
Taylor: Well, when you are a woman in this game, it’s very rare that a woman will sit next to a man at final two and win over. I think I was told it’s only the second time in the history of this game that I have won sitting next to a man, which it’s been 24 seasons. Come on.
I also, one, had this label of not being a girls’ girl and coming into this game I wanted to play a game for the girls. I want to take the women with me as far as possible. And I felt like a failure not having the chance to have the opportunity to actually take myself there in the final one or final two.
It’s really important to me that I can protect myself in the end of the game and put myself in a position where I can have the final say in the final moment of power. There’s something to be said about the social game I was able to work in the end there. I’m really grateful that Monte did take me to the end, pick me in the end when he won HOH.
But for me, I have been down so many times in this game. I just wanted the power for myself. And having that power for myself also felt like I was having power for all the women who have played this game to choose a guy to sit next to me, not to have a guy choose someone sit next to them that they thought they could beat easily. Ended up working out. I know that’s right. Got a little kitten meow over here agreeing.
So it ended up working out, thankfully, but even then I didn’t think it would work out because I was very positive that either Turner or Monte had the votes against me to beat me. So I have heard that the jury had their mind made up even before my speech well before. Which is–it blows my mind. I thought all I had was that final argument, but they saw a different side of my game that I was not even able to see myself.
Other Exit Interviews:
‘Big Brother 24’: Brittany Addresses Flipping Her Vote on Taylor and That Kyle Move
‘Big Brother 24’: Terrance on Calling Taylor a ‘Sellout’ and Tanking Brittany With the Jury
‘Big Brother 24’: Kyle Says He Respects Taylor’s Game, Addresses Calling Alyssa ‘Emotional’
‘Big Brother 24’: Jasmine Davis on Taylor’s Protection and Saying Do ‘Not Let Turner Win’
‘Big Brother 24’: Ameerah Jones Reacts to Alyssa’s Betrayal and Turner’s Anti-Bullying Speech
‘Big Brother 24’: Daniel Durston Reacts to Possible Villain Status
