'Big Brother' houseguests evict Matt Hoffman and Brendon Villegas

Big Brother's twelfth season evicted houseguests Matt Hoffman and Brendon Villegas during Thursday night's special live double-eviction broadcast of the CBS reality competition.


Matt, a 32-year-old web designer from Elgin, IL, was evicted from the Big Brother house via a unanimous 4-0 vote on Day 55 after he was placed on the chopping block by Britney Haynes, the season's seventh Head of Household.

Britney, a 22-year-old hotel sales manager from Huntington, AR, had originally nominated Brendon and Enzo Palumbo for eviction.

However Brendon, a 30-year-old high school swim coach from Riverside, CA, won the week's subsequent Power of Veto competition and removed himself from the chopping block, resulting in Britney nominating Matt after she decided he was untrustworthy because he had secretly attempted to convince her to nominate Ragan Fox -- Matt's closest ally in the house -- as her replacement for Brendon.

In addition, Enzo, Hayden Moss and Lane Elenburg -- Matt's former allies in "the Brigade," the secret alliance the foursome had formed in the game's opening days -- had also recommended (unbeknownst to Matt) that Britney nominate him for eviction, believing that he had become too large a threat.


Prior to nominating Matt for eviction, Britney has also secretly revealed Matt's betrayal to Ragan, who had previously been unwaveringly loyal to Matt and campaigned to keep him off the block.

"I'm honestly more upset that he threw me under the bus than that he's up," Ragan told Britney afterwards.  "I know it's a game, but I would have never done that to him."

Before Matt's eviction, Big Brother host Julie Chen surprised the houseguests with the news that in addition to evicting one of Britney's nominees, Thursday night's live broadcast would be a special double-eviction episode in which the houseguests would also participate in an additional HoH competition, PoV competition, and eviction live.

After his eviction, Matt -- who had suspected his Brigade allies were going to evict him last week if he hadn't use a secret Diamond Power of Veto he'd received during a prior HoH reign to remove himself from the chopping block and had also later figured out Ragan had learned of his attempt to nominate him for eviction -- told Julie he wasn't surprised to been evicted.

"We kind of knew it was coming," he said.  "I just said [to Ragan], 'Vote with the house.'"


"I had it out with him before, it's cool -- he has to do what he had to do... no hard feelings at all."

In addition, Matt -- who had intentionally thrown the HoH competition Britney ended up winning last week -- also admitted he had grown overconfident in the game.

"It was probably the worst decision I made in the game -- I was that confident, I really was that confident," he said of his decision to throw the challenge. 

"I wanted to play in this [next HoH] real bad... I thought I was so safe in that I had to play in this one.  Bad move Julie."

After Matt's post-interview interview, Big Brother's six remaining houseguests -- minus Britney, who as the outgoing HoH, was ineligible to compete -- competed in the season's eighth HoH competition, which required them to scramble through a stack of cardboard boxes and search individual piles of packing peanuts for a pair of placards containing the names of the two houseguests who had each been HoH twice during the season.


Hayden found his placards containing the names of Matt and Rachel Reilly within 30 seconds and became the eighth HoH.

After deliberating with Enzo, Lane, and Brendon briefly, Hayden nominated Ragan -- who he told Brendon was his real eviction target -- and Brendon for eviction.

All six houseguests then participated in a Power of Veto competition.  Dubbed "Before or After," the competition required the houseguests to answer whether one of the season's events had occurred before or after another of the season's events.

Ragan won the competition and opted to use the PoV to remove himself from the chopping block, causing  Hayden nominate Britney for eviction in his place. 

Enzo, Lane and Ragan then all voted to evict Brendon, resulting in his eviction via a unanimous 3-0 vote.


After his eviction, Brendon -- who had clashed with the rest of the houseguests all season but had recently seemed to make some inroads with Hayden, Enzo, and Lane following the eviction of Rachel, his "showmance" girlfriend -- told Julie he wasn't surprised to be eliminated.

"I guess I wasn't really shocked.  I had a feeling, and as much as you want to trust everyone in this house, you kind of in the back of your head think, 'I'm not sure if they're telling me the truth,'" he said.

In addition, Brendon also said he unsure whether he would still be in the game if Ragan had not won the PoV competition.

"To tell you the trust, I really don't know," he said. 






About The Author: Steven Rogers