Julie Chen On ‘Big Brother’ Team America Mission: ‘That Was No Play’


Julie Chen spills her personal views on life inside the Big Brother house every week to Entertainment Weekly. While the host plays it coy on-air, she is clear about her personal opinions when speaking to EW. This week, she weighed in on the “choose your own mission” assignment given to Team America, and whether she agreed with the popular vote that decided Frankie Grande’s idea to bring some Broadway into the Big Brother house did not impress the audience at home.

Chen’s verdict? “That was no play.” During Thursday’s live eviction, Chen told the Big Brother Team America members — Grande, Derrick Levasseur, and Donny Thompson, who was soon evicted — in code that America had voted an “overwhelming no” on their mission’s success. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Grande blamed the team’s failure on America’s unwillingness to accept a man in drag. The play put on by the house guests featured the current house guests parodying the evicted house guests, and Grande wore full make up and heels.

EW journalist Dalton Ross was clear about his own feelings by posing the question, “Let’s be honest — how lame was that, Julie?”

Chen’s complete response held nothing back:

“That was no play! And Derrick even called it ‘that Broadway thing?!?!’ Wha?!?!? There were no story lines, no dialogue, no interaction between any of them. That was a string of imitations of one another. Funny ones. But NOT a play! Fail!!!”

When Frankie discussed the mission’s failure with Derrick, he concluded the special open mission was not a “pass” to give each of the team members $5,000 — their prize for each successful completion — as he’d assumed. The live feed conversation was documented by Big Brother Network and the blog quotes Frankie as saying:

“I thought wrong. I thought this was a gift… because I am building schools in Africa with the money.”

According to Big Brother Network blogger Matthew Boyer, Frankie looked into the camera when he said he was giving his Big Brother winnings to charity. Indeed, when Frankie revealed his big secret to the other house guests — that he is the older sibling of pop star Ariana Grande — he said his winnings were going to a specific not-for-profit organization with which he works. At the time, fellow house guest Zach Rance got visibly upset in the Diary Room, claiming his game was basically over since viewers would by sympathetic to Grande’s work for a good cause.

As the failure of the Team America mission demonstrates, Rance was wrong. Another alternative for the Team America free-for-all mission was to save fan favorite Donny Thompson, which Frankie rejected for the sake of his game, but choosing that option might have given him or his charity another $5,000 of Big Brother money.

[Image: Big Brother/CBS]

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