By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Wednesday, September 22, 2015
Audrey Middleton of Villa Rica, the first transgender contestant on 17 seasons of “Big Brother,” thinks poker player Vanessa Rousso will win the $500,000 – unless Steve Moses somehow manages to beat her in the Head of Household competition. (Liz Nolan? No chance.)
Audrey, a super fan who was the fourth one evicted in late July after some admittedly sloppy game play, talked to me today after landing in New York. She will be at the season finale tomorrow.
Vanessa (and I will use the first names of these players on second reference from here on in because that’s how people know them on the show) has so far made it to the final three using guile, outright lies, manipulations, emotional pleas, alliances of varying depths and a kitchen sink somewhere as well.
“At this point, Vanessa has gotten away with bloody murder,” said Audrey, who lasted on the show about a month. Today is day 97 for the remaining houseguests. “People can hate the player but they can’t hate the game. You can be mad but nobody else got her.”
Audrey describes Vanessa as the ultimate “enigma.”
“The reason I want her to win,” Audrey said,” is I want everyone else to feel stupid, too. In the beginning, I definitely tried to get everyone on board to target her. Instead, they all turned against me.”
Vanessa certainly didn’t want to tell the others that she played poker for a living. Instead, she said she was a DJ in Vegas. “She did a great job covering herself up,” Audrey said. “She looked kind of urban. And the way she talks about music, she sounded passionate. She was very believable.”
As Audrey noted, this is the one venue where “it’s okay to be the best liar. It was difficult for me. It’s so not my personality in real life.”
She is also a bit disappointed in Steve, considering he is also a super fan of “Big Brother.” “I wish I had seen him make more of those bold moves. Vanessa really got blood on her hands. Yet nobody did anything about it.”
I wondered if Liz will get more than two votes: boyfriend Austin Matelson and twin sister Julia. Audrey said Austin is really intent on keeping Vanessa away. He might be able to convince others to vote for Liz assuming it’s Liz vs. Vanessa.
She thinks the fan favorite (and $25,000) will come down to either “Johnny Mac” McGuire or James Huling. She prefers James. “He always had the right ideas,” she said. “He would just execute them a little too late.” (That may be why he criticized Vanessa for “playing the game too hard.” How dare she!)
Audrey said fans who come up to her like Johnny Mac’s goofy personality but she thought James was equally funny and she connected more with him on a friend level. Johnny Mac, she said, tended to keep his distance from her, probably for strategic reasons. “Everywhere I went, things were going up in flames so I’m sure he didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire,” Audrey said.
As a super fan, Audrey said this season has not been terribly interesting from a game-play perspective. Alliances came and went and people would blab “secrets” to others almost instantaneously. And while she thought it was an entertaining cast, some of the more interesting characters were cut early, including Da’Vonne, Jason and even “Amazing Race” alum Jeff.
“Your interest slowly digressed because everyone was so vanilla,” she said, and I don’t even think she was referencing racial diversity, but personality.
She liked Shelli Poole, the fellow Atlantan who is in the jury house right now and is clearly supporting Vanessa for the win. “She is a cool girl,” she said. “We had a lot in common growing up in the same region of Georgia.” She was not aware that people on Twitter were kind of mean to Shelli, but she figured it was probably because she was the pretty, popular girl who hooked up with the hot dude.
Audrey also didn’t think the twins – Liz and Julia – took full advantage of their “twin-ness.” Plus, people did figure it out rather early with credit first going to Da’Vonne – yet they did survive long enough to go in together. “They weren’t strong strategic players,” she said. “They did nothing big. I feel like you could have done so many scandalous things with the twin twist. They could have had more fun with it.”
She also wasn’t sure if Austin was quite as entertaining as he thinks he is with his evil “Judas” character and wrestling background. Still, she liked him. “He’s a genuinely nice, intelligent person,” she said. And she thinks his love for Liz is sincere. As for Liz’s feeling for him? “I don’t know about Liz,” she said.
Audrey herself didn’t find anybody to hook up with on the program. “I shut that part of myself down,” she said, to focus on the game.
She said she has made some “Big Brother”-related public appearances since the end of July and has potential projects in the works she can’t yet name. She hung out with Clay, Jace and Jeff at different “Big Brother” events. She even had Clay and a few “Big Brother” alums come to Atlanta and attend a drag show. She said Clay seems genuinely in deep like (at least) with Shelli.
You’ll see Audrey on Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live” on Monday as a bartender.
TV PREVIEW
“Big Brother,” 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, 90-minute season 17 finale, CBS
from lloydcurry1 http://ift.tt/1OPKals
No comments:
Post a Comment