Jordan Lloyd wins 'Big Brother 11,' beats Natalie Martinez by 5-2 vote

Jordan Lloyd was crowned Big Brother's eleventh-season winner during last night's live finale broadcast of the CBS reality show.


The 22-year-old waitress from Matthews, NC took home Big Brother 11's $500,000 grand prize on Day 73 by a 5 to 2 jury vote.

"[I'm going to] put a down payment on a house for me, my mom and my brother," Jordan replied when Big Brother host Julie Chen asked her what she plans to do with the money.  "My aunt, she's got two kids, I'm going to give them money for college.  Maybe a new car..."

Natalie Martinez, a 24-year-old Tae Kwon Do champion from Gilbert, AZ, was the runner-up and claimed $50,000.

Big Brother 11 jury members Jessie Godderz, Michele Noonan, Jeff Schroeder, and Lydia Tavera voted for Jordan, while Russell Kairouz and third-place finisher Kevin Campbell voted for Natalie.


Due to Chima Simone's expulsion from the Big Brother house earlier this season because of several rules violations, home viewers cast the seventh vote, which they unsurprisingly awarded to Jordan. "More than 11 million" votes were cast, according to Julie.

Last night's broadcast began following Jordan's victory in the second part of the final Head of Household competition during last Thursday's live episode -- which earned her the right to compete against Kevin in the competition's final phase on finale night.  Despite his sworn allegiance to Natalie, Kevin was actually pleased Jordan had won.

"Jordan winning the second phase of this final HoH competition is perfect because now Natalie is no longer in the equation," explained Kevin. "She cannot win the power of HoH.  I always felt that Natalie would betray me, and I'm feeling pretty confident that if Jordan had the choice, she would take me because Natalie has so many friends on the jury."

Natalie knew she was vulnerable and discussed the matter with Kevin, explaining she felt that he would take Jordan to the Final 2 instead of her if the choice was his.

"If the bitch wins she's taking you," replied Kevin.


"I don't think it's on Jordan, because I don't think Jordan will take me," countered Natalie, and Kevin could sense she knew he was turning.

"Natalie is beginning to sense that I might not take her to the end if it [is] up to me," said Kevin in the Diary Room.  "She's correct to think this, because I won't take her to the end if the choice is up to me. I'm taking Jordan to the end because Jordan doesn't have a ton of friends in the jury like Natalie does."

Kevin and Jordan also discussed their plans to take each other to the Final 2, with Jordan stating she was weary of his promise.

"One-thousand percent, if I get the choice, I will pick you," Kevin told her, explaining the scenario meant he had "second with a shot at first."

"Don't be paranoid," Jordan told Kevin reassuringly before letting viewers know Kevin had every right to be paranoid.


"I'm really going to take Natalie because Kevin's won more than me," she explained in the Diary Room. "So I know [the jury] would pick him.  I know I'm not going to get $500,000 against Kevin."

Natalie then attempted to cozy up to Jordan, comparing her to one of her "girlfriends back home" immediately after stating they hadn't really been friends at all during the competition.  Regardless, Jordan said she was unsure who Kevin would take, but promised to take Natalie if she won.

"My Final 2 deal with Natalie is genuine," said Jordan in the Diary Room.

Natalie and Jordan also promised each other their jury vote should they be evicted.

Kevin was struggling with who he would have a better shot at winning against if he won the final part of the HoH competition -- especially after Natalie told him she'd vote for Jordan to win if he decided to take her.


"People vote personally Kevin," Natalie told Kevin.  "Let's say you get to choose and you evicted my ass, you don't think I'm going to vote personally?  Hell yeah I'm going to vote personally.  I'm going to give my vote to Jordan."

"I just feel like I'm playing for second place," replied Kevin.  "There's no scenario with either you or Jordan that I could see where I could win."

Natalie accused Kevin of talking "out of his ass" and walked away angrily.

Big Brother then aired footage of Michele entering the jury house following her eviction -- much to the surprise of Jeff, who thought Kevin would be the next one evicted.  Russell agreed, however Lydia and Jessie correctly predicted it would be Michele.

"If Michele's not there Jordan's chances are slim," opined Jeff.


Michele then revealed Natalie's decision to see her boyfriend -- who subsequently proposed to her.

"Who cares!?" said Lydia.

"That's stupid," added Russell.

In addition, Michele revealed Natalie initially lied about the twist.  Michele also learned Natalie was 24-years-old and not 18, which she said she had suspected anyway.

"Natalie claims she played the most honest game in the house but it turned out she was a dirty little trickster," said Michele.  "Her reputation has definitely gone sour in the jury house and that's not what I expected at all."

The jury members then watched footage from inside the Big Brother house leading up to Michele's eviction, which only appeared to make them dislike Natalie even more.


The jurors then debated who they personally thought was the most deserving of the $500,000, with Jeff arguing vehemently for Jordan and Lydia fighting for Kevin. Jessie agreed with Lydia.

"Regardless of whether you thought she was playing or wasn't playing," said Jeff about Jordan, "playing the game is getting as far as she did."

Lydia wasn't buying it and called Jeff Jordan's "protector."

"You were the puppet master and she was your little marionette that danced when you told her too," accused Lydia.

Jeff then referred to Jessie as Lydia's puppet master, which Jessie didn't like at all.

Russell and Michele pointed out Natalie also latched onto stronger players, while Lydia threw her hat into the ring for Kevin.


"Kevin did the right move by getting me out," said Jeff.

Regardless of how they felt at the moment, the jurors knew that much of their vote would be influenced by which two houseguests were the last two houseguests in the house.

The live portion of last night's broadcast then commenced, with Kevin and Jordan competing in the third phase of the final HoH competition. 

Julie would read the beginning of statements made by one of the five jury members while they were in the jury house.  Kevin and Jordan would have a choice of two possible endings.  The one with the most correct answers after five questions would be crowned the final HoH.

With the scored at two heading into the final question, both answered it correctly -- forcing a tiebreaker question, the answer of which was a number.  Whoever was closest without going over would win.

"Including tiebreaker votes, how many total votes to evict have been cast so far this season?" asked Julie.


Kevin guessed 80 and Jordan chose 50 before Julie revealed the correct answer was 51 -- making Jordan the final HoH.

Natalie and Kevin then made their final pleas before Jordan cast her vote to evict.

"Since I was always on Jeff's side, and he used the Coup d'Etat [against Jessie], I feel like a lot of people were against me and Jeff and I feel like -- between both of you -- I would never win," explained Jordan, believing both had more friends on the jury than she did.

"I would always come in second place between both of you... I have to go with what my gut is telling me."

She then chose to evict Kevin and take Natalie to the Final 2.

"It was my fault, I should have won the last competition," said Kevin to an apologetic Jordan.  "It's a good decision."


Kevin then wandered around for a few moments before Natalie reminded him what was next.

"I think you have to go," she told him.

"I don't even know what I'm going to say," asked Kevin, oblivious to Natalie.

"Kevin," called Julie over the house's public address system.

"Do I leave?" he asked.

"Yeah," answered Natalie, and out went Kevin.


Once he was out of the house, Julie asked Kevin what happened to his Final 2 deal with Jordan.

"I guess Jordan made the smart move," said Kevin. "I was hoping that she would just stick with her word and take me to the end.  But she actually made a smarter move. By not picking me, she might have a chance I guess.  I don't know. "

Kevin said he wasn't "angry or bitter" before Julie asked if his decision to evict Michele instead of Jordan a week earlier was one that cost him $500,000.

"Julie why are you asking me that!" exclaimed Kevin.  "I don't know.  No regrets Julie."

Kevin then said the "strongest strategic player" would get his Final 2 vote before being joined by the five other jury members to question Jordan and Natalie.

"We have two witches in the Final 2," said Lydia.


Julie then explained Jordan won the final HoH, which brought applause from the crowd and a frown to Lydia's face, before Russell asked the first question.  He wondered about Jordan's strategy before the game and how it changed.

She said she wanted to "lay low and not trust anyone" and be herself and see how far it got her -- and many more words than that -- before Julie told her that her time to answer was up.  Lydia then asked Natalie who she thought was her biggest threat in the house.

Natalie answered Lydia, who looked stunned.

"It was you because I had a strong friendship and alliance with Jessie and I saw you coming in between the two of us.  I didn't like that because he was my ally," said Natalie.  "He was loyal to me and I didn't want you coming in between it... I was very vocal that I would have wanted you out if I had the opportunity."

Jeff then asked Jordan what her best move was in the game other than aligning with him -- a question he explained came from the entire jury house.

"My best move... Probably honestly right now getting rid of Kevin," she answered before stumbling over her words in answering the rest of Jeff's question. 


"Kevin got rid of you, and I knew a lot of people were so mad at you for using the Coup d'Etat and I knew that there would be no chance if Kevin went up between me and Natalie that I would even have a shot at winning half-a-million dollars."

Michele told Natalie that she revealed her "supposed" engagement to the rest of the jury and asked how she felt about that.

"First off Michele, it's not supposedly, I am engaged, to clarify that," responded Natalie.  "It was critical for you to tell the jury that I was engaged because I'm very proud of it.  I wanted to share all my news with the jury because more than half the jury there are actually, truly my friends and I will be friends with them outside this house."

Jessie then asked Jordan why she felt she deserved to beat Natalie.

"I think I deserve to win the money because everyone thought that I wasn't a good competitor.   I think people thought that people carried me through this game, and I think I've proven it -- I won the two final rounds in the HoH and I got myself here.  I didn't need anyone else to help me.  I won against Natalie, and then I won against Kevin.  Now I'm in the Final 2 and I didn't have to depend on anyone else."

Russell asked Natalie why she deserved the money.


"I feel I deserve to win because I came into this house with a strategy -- and that strategy was not to be the most strongest competitor, but also not to be the weakest, but to align myself with strong players.  I feel I did, I aligned myself with Jessie, a strong physical competitor.  I aligned myself with Chima, a mentally strong competitor.  I aligned myself with [previously evicted houseguest Ronnie Talbott], somebody who knew this game inside and out," said Natalie, failing to mention Kevin.

"I think by aligning myself with them it got me in good position in this game where I didn't have to win the most competitions in this game because I had great allies and I had great competitors.  And I stuck true to every single ally I had."

Kevin asked Jordan what she did better in the game than Natalie.

"I think we both kind of were the same.  We were honest in our alliances.  She stuck by Jessie, I stuck by Jeff," answered Jordan.  "I think that I've proven myself.  I've won competitions... The reason why I did certain things was to further myself in the game."

Jordan and Natalie then made their final statements.

"I wanted to lay under the radar.  I was always scared that people would think that I was carried through this game, and I'm very proud of myself -- even if I win or not," said Jordan. 


"I think Natalie would probably be a hard person to beat because she has more friends in the jury house.  I think I've proven myself.  I won HoH.  I won a veto, and then  won the two final rounds in this.   I did it on my own.  I didn't need anyone else to help me.  I think it shows I was a better competitor than I was playing off to be.  I hope that you guys see that."

Natalie then made her final statement.

"I may have not won the most competitions in this game," she began, "but I didn't feel that I had to win the most competitions in order to get to the end... I stayed true to my alliance.  I was aligned with Jessie, Chima, Ronnie and Kevin.  I never betrayed a single one of them.  I never backstabbed any of those four people."

The jurors then cast their votes.

Prior to revealing Jordan as the winner, the houseguests discussed the situation surrounding Chima's expulsion.

"I'm a big Big Brother fan so I was really hurt by that," said previously evicted houseguest Laura Crosby.  "I was really offended that she would throw that away.  I felt terrible for Lydia and Kevin and Natalie.  I felt like she threw them under the bus almost.  It was one less person on their side for HoH... I was offended.  I thought it was a bad move, personally."


Kevin nodded in agreement as Laura spoke.

"She was talking about always quitting, quitting, quitting," said Kevin.  "I was like, 'Chima if you quit you're throwing us under the bus. We tried out.  So many people tried out to be a part of this.'  She just wasn't hearing me."

"Everyone agree?" Julie asked.  "I see all nods.  No one wants to defend Chima here, or her actions?  Okay."

In addition, Julie directly asked Jeff about his future relationship with Jordan.

"We'll see if she wins or not," he said jokingly before Julie prodded for a serious answer.

"We'll see what happens outside that house," he said.  "It's crazy in there.  We'll have to take time and talk when she gets out of the house."


"Jordan, what do you have to say?" asked Julie.

"I agree," answered Jordan.

Also during last night's broadcast, home viewers awarded Jeff $25,000 for being their favorite eleventh-season houseguest.

"It wasn't even close," said Julie.

CBS has already renewed Big Brother for a twelfth season, which is currently slated to air next summer.






About The Author: Christopher Rocchio