The first jury member of Big Brother 25 has officially been named—72 days into the game. Luckily, the extended wait comes with good reason, as CBS’ Big Brother is going old school and returning to a seven-person jury, last seen over a decade ago in 2012’s Big Brother 14.
At Thursday night’s live eviction, stay-at-home dad Cameron Hardin was unanimously evicted from the house for the second time this season, in a 6-0 vote. Cameron will return to the house on finale night, where he and the remaining six jurors will cast their vote to crown the winner of Big Brother’s landmark 25th season.
The production team at Big Brother asked Cameron a series of questions following his eviction, which were submitted by a collective of journalists covering the season. These questions were screened by CBS to prevent the possibility of influencing the jury, and this format will continue for the remainder of the season.
Check out the full exit interview below!
Was winning as many competitions as you could a part of your strategy going into the game, and if not, what was your original plan?
Oh, God, no. I think I won seven competitions while I was there. And winning that many competitions was not part of my strategy. Granted, I didn’t have the biggest strategy; I wanted to kind of ride the wave and go where I needed to go. But going in, I didn’t want to appear as a competitive threat. But after a couple of weeks, back against the wall, I had to start fighting. So I just came out of the corner and started swinging every week.
Is there anyone you feel the most betrayed by, and why?
I don’t necessarily feel betrayed by anyone. I probably looked at the game through a different lens than some people have in the past. I found a lot of great friendships and relationships in there, and that’s not me giving a diplomatic answer. That’s me saying that a lot of the game decisions that were made among all of the houseguests were made with the intention of playing the best game that we could. And I have an ability, I believe, to separate feelings between game and personal. So I don’t necessarily feel betrayed by a lot of people, other than the fact that I wish certain things wouldn’t have gone down the way that they went down. I miss my buddy Red. I know there was a wedge driven between the two of us, and that was pretty awful. But I don’t feel betrayed by him—not in the slightest. But that would be the only relationship that I felt really, really awful about having gone downhill.
Who do you think is playing the best game in the house thus far?
Currently, I’d have to say Jag. That is my dude. Jag and Cory I mean, those are the two sides of the house right now, whether you want to believe what side of the house you’re on. Jag is playing one heck of a game, and he is a tremendous competitor. He’s probably better at the veto competitions than I was; like, legitimately, he was great. I only threw one or two, and he definitely handily handled the rest of them. And Cory, of course, has set himself up in a position to where he doesn’t necessarily have to win an extreme amount of competitions, but that’s coming up pretty shortly. So luck be with him if he has to compete against Jag. It’s going to be a good one.
Do you regret putting so much faith in The Fugitives? Why or why not?
I don’t regret putting so much faith in The Fugitives. I mean, it was part of the game. You can look back and armchair quarterback this thing […] try to figure out what went wrong and where, but the decisions made in game time, I thought I was doing the right thing. I don’t know yet how invested Jag is with other pieces of the house, but I’ve tried my best to do what I thought would keep The Fugitives together for another week. So in hindsight, if I were playing the game that I was playing in the beginning of the game, I would have put Cory on the block and backdoored him my last week of HOH. But I did not want to ruffle the feathers with The Fugitives moving forward. So I would probably go back and change that, but then I wouldn’t be here talking to you guys, and that’d be crazy.
After you’ve had some time to think about your game, do you still feel — as you told Julie after your eviction — this was your fault, or do you now feel there were some other influences at work?
I’m more than positive that there were other influences at work to my demise. But you know, being the competitor that I am, I look within first, and I’d have to say that I believe wholeheartedly that this week was primarily my doing. So it’s not that I blame anyone or say that anyone betrayed me, wronged me, or did anything wrong. I’m gonna look back on this and see what actually happened, but right now, I feel as though I’m the one that kind of messed everything up. A lot of people will be upset with that. I just go, ‘Hey, man, I played the best game that I could. Sometimes things just get a hold of you inside your mind, and it’s hard to get it out.’
Do you feel like your campaign against Matt and Jag’s games caught traction in the house? Do you believe one or both of them will be joining you soon on the jury?
Do I believe it caught traction? No. I don’t think that anything that I could have done was going to get me off that block once I was on it. Once I got on it, people realized, ‘Hey, we got a shot right here. Let’s go and take the shot right now.’ I don’t think there was anything that I could have done. It wasn’t necessarily a campaign that I went around. It was basically just talking, saying, ‘Hey, here’s why I did what I did. Here’s what’s really going on, and you do with the information what you will. I want to see a good game. It’s gonna get crazy, so let’s have a good time.’ Other than that, I don’t think I did a whole lot. Who I want to see coming into the jury house after me? Honestly, the people that I want to see the most are the people that I want to hang out with and chill. And those are the people that I want to go the distance. So I want Matt and Jag to stay in as long as they can. Everyone else can come on and stop by the house.
What do you want your BB legacy to be? How do you want fans to remember you?
Fans, God. I would like for my legacy to be that Cameron is a no-bullshitter. I have a huge heart. I care about people a lot. I want to help. I’m a hell of a competitor. I’m not going to back down from a challenge. And I’m going to do everything that I can to remain myself.
If the houseguests decided to keep you in the game, who would you have truly targeted and why?
Oh, I would’ve burned Cory up, man. I wanted to get him last week, but I was talked down from The Fugitives. Even if I were to remain in the game and still been a part of The Fugitives, I wouldn’t even have asked; I would have been like, ‘Goodnight, buddy.’
What was your favorite moment inside the house?
I mean, being the superfan that I am, the whole experience was just out of body. It was incredible. Just coming into the house for the first time was like meeting a celebrity when you’re just like, ‘Oh my God,’ like, starstruck. And I’m in the house, like, ‘This is where this happened! This is where so and so had this conversation! This is where this fight went down! This is where all this stuff…’ and I go in the diary room, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is where Mike Boogie and Will had the conversation and the phone calls and stuff.’ So my favorite part was literally just coming into the house. As far as a moment, man, probably my first HOH win. Just to know that I could do it. There was a couple of times when I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can really do this.’ And it turned out that I could, so I guess that was a pretty big moment.
Why do you think your housemates found it so easy to target you?
Why do I think my houseguests found it so easy to target me? If I knew that, I’d probably still be in the game [laughs]. I think once I had set myself up as a competitor and someone that honestly went from one side of the house to the other, regardless of my intentions, it made it kind of an uphill battle for me. Sitting next to Reilly was really tough, but I think I had some support from the other side of the house, knowing now that that side of the house was the roughest side of the house to have joined. But sitting next to Hisam the very next week, I believe, really, really hurt my name because he went really hard after me. Had I not had to sit next to him, and anyone else sat next to him, like Jag or somebody, they would have had the struggles that I had. So I think sitting next to Hisam because he ran around the house and did everything he possibly could do to stay. It really put my name in a bad light, and from that moment on, I was the one to go after. And it made it easy for everyone to go after me because I was the one to go after.
New episodes of Big Brother air Sundays at 10 p.m. ET, Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, and Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.
