‘Big Brother 18’ Live Feeds: James Learns Natalie Blames Him

James and Natalie are having an interesting week together on the Block as they’ve each promised the other they want them to stay, have actively campaigned in their favor, and then still managed to put in a good word for themselves to stay. Natalie’s method on the latter raised a few eyebrows with what she revealed and soon word got back to James.

I would have covered this sooner but with the holiday weekend this one slipped to a later time than I’d usually like to have it written up. But when the issues started being raised by HGs again on Monday I knew it was worth swinging back around and getting up for discussion as we’re likely to see it run through the week.

Flashback to 1:07 AM BBT 9/5 Cams 3/4 on your Live Feeds (get your Free Trial now).

James has just walked in to the HoH room when Paul asks James a “who said what” question. He wants to know how he ended up on the Block. Paul says he is now hearing that James told Natalie that Paul was coming after James as compared to what he previously heard that Nicole and Corey told Natalie that Paul was coming after James.

James immediately denies that he told Natalie that Paul was coming after him (James). “I promise you,” says James. Paul says he doesn’t care anymore but just wants to figure it out. James says he’s sure it was Nicole who told Natalie that Paul was coming after James.

Paul tells James he’s not trying to put a wedge between James and Natalie but Natalie is telling him something different. Now we’re getting to Natalie’s talk from the other night where she came to Victor and Paul to apologize and then blame shift things on to James as having given her bad advice. More details on that conversation here.

Victor expands on what Paul started to say. He tells James that Natalie told them she got bad advice from James “and she regretted taking that advice.” “Whaaatt?” replies James. He’s clearly taken back and sounds annoyed. James says she told him she came up here to campaign to go. The guys say she was blaming the situation on James when she came up for that talk.

Paul says Natalie did come up another time and told them she wanted James to stay and she was just upset because she would have used the Veto on James. Paul tells James he didn’t believe her story at that point because she had previously campaigned for herself to stay while blaming their issues on James.

Paul promises James he was never coming after James despite what was being said. He again asks James if he told others that Paul was coming after him. James again denies it.

James tells Paul and Victor that Natalie used claims about Paul coming after them as her justification for putting Paul up on the Block though she regretted going after Victor. The guys tell James they don’t believe she regretted putting Victor up since she came back and apologized for backstabbing them.

Now James starts to get in to the issues he’s now having with Natalie and questioning their relationship. More details on the next page…

James also tells the guys he’s been starting to suspect something had was happening with Natalie because they’ve been arguing more downstairs. Not only that but James is telling the guys about Natalie warning him not to link up with “certain people” or she’d never talk with him again. Natalie told him to stay away from Nicole and Corey, but he doesn’t name Nicorey here in this talk. James says Natalie hurt his feelings with those comments and they slept in separate beds over it.

The talk continues for awhile more as James expresses more concerns about Natalie pushing him away recently and their spats but the worrying didn’t stop there for James.

Earlier on Monday evening James was alone with Victor when he brought up again these issues with Natalie saying he hoped he wasn’t being played by her on TV. Jump to 5:30 PM BBT 9/5 for the brief conversation. Victor agrees with James and says he’s worried for James about that too.

Natalie arrives in the backyard and the talk between Victor and James stops. Neither James or Natalie acknowledge the other but soon they are alone and then it’s just them and silence. Finally James speaks to Natalie and mentions other HGs are starting to sense their tension. Natalie tells him there is no tension on her end, doesn’t want to fight, and tells James to stop overthinking their situation. We get the full run of “do you just want me to leave you alone?” and “maybe after BB you’ll never want to talk to me again” accusations from James.

This goes on for about twenty minutes (starting around 5:40 PM BBT) and is just as awkward as you can imagine. James is standing at the pool table while Natalie sits on the lounger. He’s worried and she doesn’t want to talk about it. When they finally stop she goes inside and James asks an empty backyard, “Why did you get in this showmance, James?”

At this point James is worried that Natalie has played him and now that his usefulness is up for her she’s trying to springboard off his sinking ship. Whether or not that’s the case it does seem to be his perception at this point and it has him questioning his entire summer’s showmance.

We’ve still got three more days for Natalie and James to hang out, make up, break up, rinse, and repeat. At this point it does look like Natalie will go and maybe between her telling James to stay away from Nicorey and the guys semi-welcoming him back James could end up shifting to their side.

We’ll have to wait a few more days to see if he gets a chance to make another go of his season or if he gets run on out next week, following Natalie to the Jury. Either way, at this point we may have reached the end of James trying to save Natalie’s game at the cost of his own.

What do you think of this whole mess? Should Natalie have blamed James for their situation? Does James need to relax about their showmance? Is there really any chance of them being a couple outside of the house? So many questions and we’ll probably get so few answers on this one.

Update: While I was finishing this article James and Natalie had another fight. Go back to 7:30 PM BBT for the half hour drama in the hot tub. Natalie suggested it was unfair that she was going instead of him and she regretted telling Paul and Victor to vote her out since now it seemed like they were going to do it. Natalie also questioned James again about if he had a F3 deal with Nicole and Corey which he denied. Eventually Natalie got up and left while James sat there stunned.