Big Brother 17: Vanessa Rallies Support Against Jeff

For the better part of Saturday night, Vanessa Rousso scrambled to source a justification for targeting Jeff Weldon over general house favorite Audrey Middleton. She wanted to be ready, just in case.

Vanessa Rousso argues against Jeff Weldon
Vanessa Rousso argues against Jeff Weldon – Source: CBS All Access

Once the Power of Veto competition was complete Vanessa moved quickly with greater urgency to shore up a plan and rally support to put another target on the Block.

For whatever reason Vanessa wasn’t comfortable going with “you’re a threat, Jeff.” She wanted something to pinpoint as cause for her going back on promises to several HGs that she’d be renoming Audrey given the chance. We saw her panic when John won the Veto and it only got messier through the night, but it looks like she pulled it off.

Earlier in the evening, Flashback on Live Feeds to 6:35PM BBT to find Vanessa, Shelli, and Audrey in the HoH room. Vanessa is pressing on Audrey to generate one of her patented lies to help cover the story of Jeff going up instead of Audrey. At one point Shelli remembers Jeff said after the Meg-Audrey fight that if Audrey didn’t go up they’d come after Vanessa. This doesn’t hold long enough for Vanessa though as she wants something bigger.

Eventually Shelli tells Vanessa that if she wants to put up Jeff then just do it and not be worried, but Vanessa refuses. She won’t budge until she has a good reason. Lucky for her, things come together late at night.

After talks with Vanessa we see Austin working on Jeff trying to keep him for taking up the torches to march against the HoH. Austin promises to try and work to keep Jeff safe, but this doesn’t last long. Flashback to 2:55AM BBT.

Vanessa gives Austin a nudge and soon he’s going after Jeff for her. Flashback to 4:35AM BBT as we’ve got Austin digging in to Jeff while Shelli, Jeff, and James watch along. Austin is telling Shelli & Clay that Jeff wanted Shelli out and he didn’t trust them as a couple.

Few minutes later Vanessa arrives and steps up in to Jeff’s face. It’s a little aggressive but it doesn’t escalate. Jeff is denying he was against Chelli and mentions something about Vanessa’s alliance. She blows her top and says he was the one trying to start an alliance with her.

The crowd thins out leaving Jeff to do damage control with Chelli who don’t believe what he’s telling them anymore. Flashback to 4:40AM BBT. Jeff admits he said some of the things about not trusting them as a couple, but promises it was just to play along with Vanessa and Austin.

Everything is a mess right now and most of the house already figured out that Vanessa wasn’t going to put up Audrey. Instead of just going with a “you’re a competitive threat for me” Vanessa has generated an overly complicated thread that I don’t think most of them believe anyway. Jeff later pointed out that all of Vanessa big fury moments right now are over things that have nothing to do with her. Nothing.

All the same, Vanessa feels her job is done and there is sufficient justification for Jeff to go up on the Block against James during Monday’s Power of Veto meeting. We’ll have to wait and see who becomes the target, but Vanessa continues to insist James is her preference for eviction.

What do you think will happen? Is Vanessa going after the targets this week?

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49 Comments

  1. Vanessa just put herself in a miserable position. Her long-term fate in this game comes down to next week’s HOH.

    • Yeah that ought to be an interesting comp. She will easily be targeted by the other side of the house i would think, simply because her not nominating Audrey looks bad after she’s told everyone that’s what she was gonna do. Who knows though, these house guests are so forgetful this season…

  2. SMH @ Van. She had such potential to be a great player. She’s become more unlikeable than Audrey and Jeff, once the other HGs piece together what all happened this week. That’s a huge feat. How does a pro poker player, great at reading people’s tells, calculating the cards, keeping their mouth shut, etc. become such a bad BB player? I would have thought that she had all of the cunning and traits necessary for this game. Yet, she has shown the opposite. Poorly reading people, especially Audrey, emotional, paranoid, overthinking, over talking, flying off the handle, turning molehills into mountains, poor social skills, poor observational skills, etc. Will she make it to jury? IDK

    • Idk that poker skills necessarily translate to BB. You have to be more of a politician than a statistician.

      • Agreed. Poker players may be good at reading people and calculating odds, but they aren’t necessarily great at all of the other social skills required by big brother. You don’t even need to speak to be good at poker. Another player that is letting the HOH go to their head.

      • I thought I read somewhere that she was more of an online poker player than being in a poker game. I also thought I read that she was on the World Series of Poker but I could be wrong there as well. I am pretty sure I never saw her on that show at all but then again, it only showed a small amount of people on it.

    • Despite all this I think she might do just fine… At least until early jury. Because right now the other side hates Audrey and is catching onto the twin twist. So I think she can go a few weeks undetected

      • Maybe I’m just feeling bitter, because I really wanted Van and Da to hit it off, align, and rule the game. They were my 2 to root for preseason. My other 2, Steve and JMac, aren’t aligning, either. Sigh

  3. Vanessa should have told Jeff he is being nominated as a pawn, that he is safe, and that her target is James. Shelli, Clay, Austin, Steve, and Liz/Julia then could also tell Jeff he is safe and they are voting to evict James. Then Thursday night blind side Jeff.

    • That’s what I believe she should have done too! Hope it works out in the end! I think Jeff is a pig..”point blank and period” as Day would say!

    • I think Vanessa knows that Jeff would have been very suspicious of her intent and would have acted on that suspicion and tried to cause trouble behind her back. This way, Van has probably limited any damage Jeff might try to inflict between Van and her alliance members

    • I’m not saying she did a good job with this Jeff renom thing…. But then when the other side is going to question her about not nominating Audrey… Especially when both Vanessa and Austin have repeatedly told ppl Audrey is the target

  4. On one hand, I want Jeff to go because I think he is playing like an Audrey and says a lot of derogatory stuff, both of which makes him deserved to be evicted. On the other hand, I don’t want Jeff to go because he is such a hurricane and causes a lot of dramatic disasters in the house…. Boring feeds always make me unhappy

  5. I think it’s time for Audrey to call a house meeting to clear everything up.

    • Or make it worse for her. Very hard to say how this season ends since it seems there is so many paranoid people in the house this year. I still like James for the win but at this point, it is anybody’s guess as to how the next HOH’s think.

      • I think it will be those that dont cause trouble JMac is doing well winning constantly but still is not seen as a threat no one hates him so he can coast as James, Jeff, Meg, Jason, Shelli, Clay, Austin, Vanessa, Liz, and Audrey all take each other out. JMac, Becky, and Steve just coast along as the hatred continues.

      • As a viewer, I’d like to see the other side win HOH next and watch them scattered like cockroaches. I think my man JMac will still be safe during that time. lol

  6. If Vanessa wants Jeff out she should just put him up. Fabricating a reason based on a pile of lies just so she can sleep better at night or try to keep blood off her hands is really weak and I don’t think anybody will believe it anyway and it shows weakness to the other people in her alliance. It is ugly and shows those who know what Vanessa is willing to do when it is their turn to go.

    • Vanessa was married to a dude. They broke up shortly before he passed away from cancer. No specifics were really made public but I suppose it’s possible it could’ve been because she was into chicks instead…

      • After watching Vanessa operate this week I’m sure he welcomed death as a sweet relief.

      • She cast votes against the people that weren’t evicted. She didn’t vote to evict Jace or Day, so she hasn’t evicted anybody, her karma is clear.

  7. This was a stupid decision by Vanessa, Clay, Shelli and Austin. This will blow up in their faces. I Vanessa asked the voice of reason Steve for his advice, this probably wouldn’t of happened.

    • She did ask him. They had a long talk last night. She just turned down all of the good advice he was giving her. He kept saying that it was up to her. She only pulled out the information that she wanted to know, like how big a successful alliance can get before it’s too big.

      ETA: This was strictly Van’s decision. Austin, Shelli and Clay just went along with it.

  8. The other side of the house doesn’t care who she puts up if its not Audrey they were going to target her. Basically they wanted someone else to do their dirty work. Vanessa is being smart going after a big threat in the game.

    • choice of person is correct however she is doing it in the worst way possible. Her time in the game is limited which is sad because she was my favorite to win

  9. Vanessa reminds me of Helen from bb15 one ounce of power and she gone nutso. Her time will be limited

  10. I was really happy when Vanessa became HOH but she is really messing it up. Why can’t she just keep it simple and not make such a production out of this re-nom? Every HOH puts a target on themselves for the following week but she is making her target bigger than she had to.

  11. Something is wrong with my feeds. I already turned it off, but I can still hear Vanessa’s voice.

  12. I’m disappointed in Austin for helping her set this up. As Shelli said, if she wants Jeff up, then just do it. As HOH you can do whatever the hell you want. And what’s the big fuss over Jeff anyway? He’s not the most likable guy but he’s not on the crazy level like Audrey (or Vanessa!).

  13. How in the heck can Liz’s twin be allowed in the game since she told almost everyone…Big Brother has some of the cheesiest rules & they break their own rules all of the time…every year I say I’m not going to watch due to how ridiculous each year turns out (rule or theme wise)…the producers of this show pushed hard last year for Franke & America was so sick of that whacko job…seems like they are pushing hard again for another whack job, Audrey…even though we buy the live feeds we can’t see what the producers are telling them privately in the dairy room…I don’t buy the “fair” play at all…also, it has been proven in the past that they use paid actors or some of them have acting as their background…so I don’t buy their nonsense…2 came from the amazing race so you know they have conversations with the producers…then there is Liz & her twin…easily the producers could request them to implement their dirty work…& now with this cheesy BB takeover they can change the game in any direction that they choose…CBS needs to fire those moronic producers & put someone in there that has the social skills of a 4th grader & above…just dumb

    • I don’t think not telling people was ever part of the rules. They just have to get through five evictions to have the second one enter the house as an individual.

  14. Oh geez, I’m such a Jeff. I just now figured out that Chelli is referring to Clay and Shelli, not a typo of Shelli’s name. What a moron. At least I know who the HOHs were this week!

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