Da’Vonne Rogers became the second person to be evicted from the Big Brother 17 house last night when her best efforts to pull the votes together came up short and she was sent packing.
I spoke with Da’Vonne today about her experience on the Big Brother, what she would have done if she had been able to stay, and why did she make those curious picks for the Last Laugh vote blocks. Read on for all that and more.
When someone is evicted we try to look at what could have been the root cause and that’s tough because it’s usually such a combination of events that lead us to this point. But here’s a big one for Da’Vonne: does she wish she had used that Fast Forward save on Shelli who was obviously troubled by it going to Liz instead?
Da’Vonne Rogers: All night I tossed and turned about it. If I just gave that to that girl I’d be fine. But in my mind I just felt like the second group of Houseguests thought the first group had made an alliance so I wanted to shut that down.
Liz had offered me two free safeties, “if I win HoH you’re good.” You know, I got to protect myself twice, so why not take the offer? It definitely bit me in the butt for sure.
The last ditch effort by Da’Vonne to stay inside the game came thanks to her Last Laugh twist power that let her cancel out three voters. Many of us considered the easy picks to be Clay, Jeff, and James to be easy picks but instead she went with Jeff, Jackie, and Becky. Why she’d make those choices?
Rogers: I wanted to remain anonymous if I stayed in the house and I knew if I picked Clay or Audrey that it’d be obvious that I had the power. I didn’t want the people to know that.
So I figured, who could I pick that it wouldn’t be obvious that I had it but at the same time would cancel out votes for Meg. I knew those three would be perfect.
The Twin Twist was quickly spoiled to us as viewers, but it seemed to pass by the Houseguests who were living side by side with Liz Nolan and her twin Julia. Once Da’Vonne discovered this secret I thought she’d use it to her advantage and apply a little blackmail pressure. So what happened?
Rogers: It was definitely a bad move [letting everyone know]. I felt like me and Jason at that point had become one player. That was my ride or die. If I had tea, I was giving it to him and vice versa.
With that I said, look, I’m gonna tell you but keep this between me and you. I’ll be damned if like two seconds later he didn’t run to Meg and then Meg ran to Jeff and then… It spread like wildfire and hit the floor running. It was awful.
We saw Da’Vonne crack the Twins code this Monday, but was that the first time she noticed?
Rogers: After maybe a week and a half of being in the house. I knew it! The girl who entered the house had a real big butt, so I called her “thick ‘ums.” She had real nice butt, shout out to her. Her sister was very slim. The one who entered the house [Liz] is very fun. She likes to play pool, she want to work out, she want to chill in the hot tub. The other just want to lounge around and chill.
I could tell in how they dressed, in how they acted, in their personality. If you really put them side by side they look nothing like twins. It’s kinda obvious. I was shocked nobody else saw it.
A lot of people were upset about the “thick ‘ums” reference last night so I asked Da’Vonne if that was a slam or what?
Rogers: Where I come from “thick” is a compliment like “ohh, she’s got a nice butt.” I was giving her a compliment. I was a little jealous! I want one like that too.
Da’Vonne was at odds with Shelli and Clay for a long time in the house so I wanted to know where she felt like that all started and why wouldn’t they let it go.
Rogers: I think that was the situation where I got in to it with Clay where I exposed him for not being the sweet, charming guy he claimed to be. Once that was exposed I knew that was a problem. I really feel like he handed Shelli the gun and put the bullet on my name and she fired.
So what if Da’Vonne had succeeded in her vote flip and even scored a big win the HoH comp, then who would she have nom’d?
Rogers: I would put up Shelli and Audrey, let them battle it out, and then I’d Backdoor Clay and send them.
Going in to the season I fully expected Da’Vonne to catch on to Vanessa Rousso, a widely known professional poker player, since she’s a poker dealer herself, but it didn’t happen. Why not?
Rogers: No, I did not know her at all! It kind of freaked me out when she named some of the casinos she had been playing poker at and I was like, “ohh!” Cause I’ve dealt at some of those casinos and she’s going to recognize my hands and face. She’s going to know who I am.
Da’Vonne was a real fan of Big Brother, so I wanted to know what was her favorite memory she’d be taking away from her experience of finally getting in the house.
Rogers: The friendship I built with Jason. I came in to the game saying I wasn’t going to trust anybody, I was going to be a robot, and not like anybody. He was my piece of home and I really enjoyed that moment with him building that friendship.
His love and passion for the game and how much he knows this game. Me and him could have won this game!
So Da’Vonne won’t get to the end of Big Brother 17 with Jason, but who does she think will get there to the very end?
Rogers: I hope Jason, but if they continue to let this man fly by like they have then it’s probably going to be John along with Audrey.
Da’Vonne is out of the running now so what’s next for her?
Rogers: I need to go home and see my baby! Before I do anything else with my life I need to go home and be with my baby. I miss that girl so much it’s ridiculous.
I gotta detox and get the Big Brother up off of me cause I’ve been very paranoid, very angry, very emotional. So I gotta get that off of me and then get back in to the swing of things in my regular life.
Fans of Da’Vonne will be able to find her soon on Twitter, but she doesn’t have an account just yet. I invited her to come find us when she gets on there and then we’ll let everyone know where they can get more of her Big Brother commentary on this season.
Update: Da’Vonne’s official Twitter account is @DayDaVonne_bb17
Watch our original preseason interview with Da’Vonne Rogers:
Nice interview! She seems here as she did at the beginning of the show, before she turned into a paranoid, self-victimizing crazy person. I still don’t know why she got so irrationally upset at people asking why she went into a room she wasn’t sleeping in, or why she kept screaming about people being cowards for wanting to vote her out.
Self-victimizing and irrationally blaming indeed. Cya Day, not a fan!
I liked her so much in the first episode! Oh, well.
Yet she spoke the truth where Shelli and Clay lied to her face. Can’t wait to see them walk out the door.
I’m sorry to see Da go. She is smart, sassy and very observant! I loved her DRs. She would have kept this season very interesting and fun.
i like to compare her DRs to bb3 queen dani reyes’ DR sessions dissing other houseguests. i just would want to see how far she would make it in the game if she had just gotten out really-bad-extension shelli and ignorant country boy clay. this is why i don’t like getting wrapped up with big brother anymore haha.
I like Da’Vonne I hate that BB Doesn’t have a diverse cast, that’s why I don’t watch.I don’t why she would go on such a show after what occurred on BB 15 with Candice. But I thing I do know, if Da was on BB 15, all that bullshit would not have happened.
Hey Lulu, Cheryl here, I think if Da’Vonne had been on BB15 Aarynnation and GinaMarie messy, would have gotten their asses WHUUPPED. Da’Vonne would have been the first female to have gotten kicked off the show for that alone. And YES BB needs to have diversity EVERY season. You’d think they would know that by now, and guess what they do, they just don’t care because people like us keep tuning in every season anyway. I do remember one season where they did ACTUALLY have half of the houseguest white and the other half black, I just can’t remember what season that was. Anyway believe it or not, all the black folks got picked off one at a time, “big suprise” and I think a white person or two was evicted in between that. But all in all something really does need to be done about the whole situation of how BB goes about choosing people for the show because when the majority of houseguest is ALWAYS of one color, and I say color because WE ARE ALL THE SAME RACE, (THE HUMAN RACE), all that is telling us the viewers, A very very very DIVERSE bunch of viewers is that your way (CBS/BB) is the right way. And it’s not BB / CBS.
Big Brother does not care about diversity..nor does the houseguest. Every season the minority is voted out really quickly. Da was a big mouth, and did not know how to keep her mouth closed. She thought that the other players liked her….there are a few Roofs in there. What the twins did to Da was just wrong. Then the twins turn around and tell some of the houseguest the truth. WTF? This beginning to be a boring season. You can’t have that many young stupid people in the house and it be fun and interesting.
Hey Gwendolyn, yes Da was out spoken, as well she did not take Clay’s crap either, which is why he talked his bed buddy Sh!!tty into putting her up for eviction and she called out the biggest liar in the house, and yes, these like many before them are some really really stupid houseguest, but like Da called it when Julie asked her the question, “who do you think will win BB”, the big liar (Audrey), because like Da, if Audrey gets a chance and wins an HOH because these dumb asses keep bluffing to others that they’re going to back door Audrey and never do because they’re to busy going after other people I believe, like Da would have had she won, Audrey would go after people that the other houseguest are afraid to put up for eviction. When Audrey’s beast is released, they will be singing and old school Lou Rauls song called, If I could I shoulda,woulda….lol. By the way..what is a Roofs, or was that a type O. Holla back..
Perfect, Cheryl…. even down to the Lou Rawls reference! lol On another note, ‘Roofs’ (as in Dylan Roof) is the white supremacist terrorist who shot the nine innocent AA’s during Bible study.
Ok, thanks I did not know or remember that jerks name.
Well unfortunately they haven’t been letting John fly by, I wish they would. He’s been nominated every week.
Also I just cringed when she gave that rude low class goodbye message to Jace and I didn’t even much like him. Nobody talks that way the first week. For that alone I was glad to see her leave, she deserved it.
@ Mike, if you hated her goodbye to Jace what did you think of the twins goodbye to her? I don’t like either one of the twins.
She did not deserved that for one, and two the houseguest had already been together for a week or two long before they even went into the house. What BB does is out to all the people they chose to go on BB, when they narrow it down to the last 100 people, those are the people that are flied to L.A. and that’s when they pick the houseguest. It’s from that 100 people. So by the time that is whittled down, these people have already gotten to know one another.
Great interview Matt!
This was a fantastic interview!