Big Brother season 25 ended on a high note on Thursday with a surprising, historic and remarkably supportive finale that saw history being made for a third season in a row.
After 100 days in the Big Brother house, 25-year-old Jag Bains was voted the new champion, taking home a $750,000 grand prize and going down in history as the first-ever Sikh-American to win the show.
After the confetti settled, Bains sat down with ET correspondent, and Big Brother season 24 winner, Taylor Hale, and reflected on his accomplishment.
“Being a Sikh on the show, like, just being a houseguest on the show, was so important,” Bains shared. “Having this platform to be able to present myself and my community meant the world to me.”
“To be able to stay loyal to whoever I was loyal too and play the game how I wanted to play, and be victorious at the end, it is everything,” he added.
“When I played this game, a lot of times there were tough decisions I had to make, and ultimately what it came down to every time, I want to make a decision that I would be proud of,” he explained. “That I will look back and I’d be able to hold my head up high. And I feel like I played that game.”
Bains also became the first ever houseguest to be unanimously evicted, which occurred in Week 4. However, due to a special twist in the game’s rules, Bains’ ally, Matt Klotz, had been given the Power of Invincibility, which could nullify any eviction in either weeks 4 or 5. In a bold and risky move, Klotz used the power on Bains, and kept him in the game.
Bains went on to stay loyal to Klotz — the show’s first-ever deaf contestant — all the way to the end, despite many people predicting that keeping Klotz in the game to be the other half of his final two was a mistake that could have cost him the game.
“Part of me did think I was making that mistake, and that’s why I say there’s really hard decisions that we have to make in the game. Like, how do I stay loyal to the person who saved me in this game? He is the reason I’m in this game,” Bains shared. “I was on the block, I prayed. And Matt answered those prayers. He saved me, and I made a vow that day that I was gonna go to the very end with him.”
“It’s a reality that he could have won the whole thing, and for me I really thought he had a strong shot against me,” he continued. “But ultimately, I knew that if I decided to evict him, I don’t know if I could live with that decision. For me, it came down to morals, and what I would be proud to do, and proud to look at later, and proud to tell my family about, and to stand by that decision.”
“So I knew that it was a risk, I knew that it was a $750,000 mistake, but to me it wasn’t a mistake,” Bains said.
On Thursday, after Bains had won the final Head of Household competition — notably making him the player with most comp wins in Big Brother history as well — the whole season came down to him and Klotz, who each got a chance to deliver a speech to the jury arguing for why they should get the votes needed to win.
Klotz was up first, and he calmly detailed his different decisions, and how he overcame being deaf in a game that is so heavily based on whispered secrets. It was a nuanced and compelling examination of his calculating and understated gameplay.
In a bold, brash move that will like be remembered for more being one of the more daring gambits in recent Big Brother memory, Bains decided to go in with a bit more fervor, telling the jurors, “I am standing where I am standing and you are sitting where you are sitting because I have willed it to be that way!”
“It is not by luck, it is not by mistake, it is because I signed your eviction notice!” Bains continued, with an unexpected level of fire and passion. “My hands are covered in your blood! I am the most dominant, masterful, and strategic player in this house. I don’t only deserve to win, I have earned this victory!”
Reflecting on that speech after managing to pull off his victory with a final vote of 5-2, Bains admitted that it might have been a bit more intense than he meant for it to be, but he doesn’t regret it.
“I’ve always said to everyone that you need to advocate for yourself, and I felt so passionate about making it. I truly felt like I deserved to win,” Bains told ET. “And so, in that moment, I was just really passionate, and I was saying everything that I felt was real.”
“Did I lie in my speech? Absolutely not. Did I go super hard? Yeah. I could have toned it down a bit,” Bains said. “But my tactic was like, look, I can either shy away from the game I’ve played or own up to it fully…. and ultimately I wasn’t going to shy away from how I played the game and I gave the speech I gave.”
Congrats to the newest Big Brother champion!
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