Braden Bacha became the first houseguest evicted from Big Brother's eleventh season during last night's live broadcast of the CBS reality show.
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Jessie, a 23-year-old bodybuilder from Huntington Beach, CA, had placed Braden on the chopping block after Russell Kairouz, a single 24-year-old mixed martial arts fighter from Walnut Creek, CA, won the season's first Power of Veto competition and the pair -- who quickly became close allies after finding themselves grouped into the same "Athletes" clique -- decided that Braden was a bigger threat than Lydia Tavera, whom Jessie had initially chosen as one of his two eviction nominees.
Jessie had originally nominated Lydia, a single 24-year-old special effects make-up artist from Torrance, CA, after deciding she hadn't been behaving sincerely and was already "playing the game" hard. However that opinion changed after Jessie grew closer to Lydia and his "Athletes" clique decided they could no longer trust Jeff Schroeder, the fourth member of their clique, and needed to get Braden -- who they had come to consider a troublesome threat that had also emerged as Jeff's closest ally -- out of the game.
Lydia had originally been nominated for eviction alongside Chima Simone, a single 32-year-old freelance journalist from West Hollywood, CA.
Chima had been nominated as "a pawn" after her three-person "Brainiacs" clique -- which also included Michele Noonan, a married 27-year-old neuroscientist from Pasadena, CA, and Ronnie Talbott, a married 30-year-old gamer from Belpre, OH -- had agreed to secretly form a nascent alliance with the "Athletes" clique in a move that, had Jeff not decided he preferred the members of the "Popular" clique instead, would have given them a 7-6 advantage over the house's "Popular" and "Off-Beats" cliques.
However the alliance appeared to quickly begin crumbling in the following days, with Ronnie and Russell growing mutually distrustful of each other and Ronnie going as far as to tell Jeff and the "Popular" clique that he and Michelle would be willing to join their effort to secure enough votes to save Braden from eviction.
Prior to having the houseguests vote live, Big Brother host Julie Chen also gave each eviction nominee a chance to make a final plea. Braden used his opportunity to make vague references to a post-Power of Veto Ceremony incident (watch the video) in which he had used a racial slur and made additional racially-charged comments during an argument with Lydia and Kevin Campbell, a single 29-year-old graphic designer from Chula Vista, CA.
"I think each of every one of you guys are incredible people. You know we all came from all over the United States and came together and made the best Big Brother first week in history, I think, all had a great time," Braden told his fellow houseguests. "[I] did say some bad things and made a few mistakes and I've made my apologies, I hope you guys can all respect that and um, keep me around, and I want to prove myself . Just give me your vote. You guys are all awesome, thank you very much."
However Chima decided to make the incident -- which Thursday night's CBS broadcast only aired in a heavily-edited form that made Lydia and Kevin's subsequent responses appear largely unprovoked -- the centerpiece of her final plea, which ended up being censored by the network.
"It amazes me how short some of the memory spans in here are. Because my opponent here called both of my very good friends [censored] and he called [censored], yes, he did," Chima told the houseguests as Kevin nodded and several members the live broadcast's studio audience -- who were watching on monitors outside the house with Julie -- groaned.
"And so a vote for Braden is a vote for a bigot. Anyone who aligns themselves with a racist and a misogynist, you deserve to go home," she added as Braden appeared to attempt to shield his face by taking a drink from a nearby glass and the audience groaned some more.
"Well Chima, I think that's the most memorable last plea speech we've ever heard," Julie said afterwards. "Thank you."
RELATED LINK: 'BIG BROTHER' SHOWMANCES NOWAccording to online postings from alleged studio audience members, the censored portion included a reference to Braden's racial slur use as well as a claim that he had made an additional sexually derogatory comment about Julie.
Chima ended up receiving votes from Jeff and Michelle as well as "Off-Beats" clique member Casey Turner and "Popular" members Laura Crosby and Jordan Lloyd.
Braden received votes from Russell, Natalie, Kevin, Lydia, and Ronnie -- who gushed that he would be "going to hell" as he cast his vote.
Julie failed to ask any direct questions about Chima's final plea comments during her brief post-eviction interview with Braden.
Following Braden's eviction, the 12 remaining houseguests -- minus Jessie, who as the outgoing HoH, was deemed ineligible to compete -- competed in the season's second HoH competition.
Dubbed "Most Likely To," the challenge, which featured a "Big Brother homecoming" theme, required one member of each clique to take turns attempting to correctly answer which clique had been the most popular response to a series of Internet poll questions the show had asked viewers. The first houseguest to correctly each answer would get to eliminate another clique member who was also playing in the same round from the challenge, however any wrong answers would result in the houseguest being eliminated from the challenge.
Given their early game dominance, the "Athletes" were the first clique eliminated by the rest of the houseguests. The "Populars" and "Off-Beats" then followed next, leaving Ronnie and Michelle -- the two remaining members of the "Brainiacs" -- to face-off with one final question.
Ronnie buzzed in first and answered the question correctly, resulting in him becoming the season's second HoH.
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About The Author: Steven Rogers
