Vanessa Rousso was ousted from the Big Brother 17 house in a major upset during the season finale last night when Steve Moses beat her out in a narrowly won competition and wisely sent her to the Jury before she had the chance to beat him there.
Arriving in Jury Vanessa surprised Steve with a vote against him as she explained to us today in our interview. Find out why she says she voted for Liz and why that season long emotional strategy might not have been strategy after all.
Big Brother Network: You decided to vote for Liz over Steve in F2 after he evicted you. Could you tell us about your decision and your comments when casting the vote?
Vanessa Rousso: I think I misspoke. What I meant to say was who would do a good job of representing out cast essentially. I thought Liz was a better representative.
I had a deal with Liz. Obviously I was banking on being one of the final two, not being a one of the ones in Jury. I knew I was fighting an uphill battle with the Jury and I needed votes so I made a deal with Liz that if either of us found ourselves in that third place situation, we would vote to keep the other one under the guise of we really want a woman to win this year. So that was our deal and I stuck to it.
It was sort of a toss-up in my mind. Strategically, obviously Steve played the better strategic game, but the reason it’s a toss up, I sort of gauged them differently. I looked at it like if you had one barometer for what this person’s expected strategic level and then how did they perform relative to that expectation.
Steve performed pretty well in line with my expectations, but Liz on the other hand far surpassed my expectation for how she should have performed not knowing much about the game. Not knowing much about Big Brother. She honestly at times floored me with how… I think people are really underestimating the level of strategic ability that girl really had. She was definitely on it strategically and caught on to the game very quickly so for that I gave her kudos. I stuck to my word on my deal and in the end that was it for the vote.
BBN: How did you decide to keep your deal with Liz over Steve?
Vanessa: This is an easy one. This one basically comes down to forgive, not forget. From the moment on 40, 41-ish when Steve and I formalized what was previously just a working twosome with SoS in to a formal F2 and shook on it, from that moment on I went on through the game to find out bombshell after bombshell of disloyalty from Steve.
Whether it was concurrent F2 deals with John and the Rockstars, to I get put on the Block as a renom and Steve knew in advance and didn’t warn me, to I get put on the Block by Becky and Steve doesn’t even promise me his vote until he sees that’s the way the whole house is voting. To me that was tremendously disloyal from someone who was supposed to be my F2. He should have been the one guy I could count on for a vote.
Then from that he was part of the plan to target me just two weeks after that. Then he tried to essentially replace me in Scamper Squad with Johnny Mac. So it was bombshell after bombshell. Not to mention he broke his word to me when he gave me his word that he did not know there was a plan to backdoor me that week.
I can forgive and I’m a very forgiving person, but I didn’t forget. The moral to that whole storyline is I didn’t owe Steve anything in the game and that final two was just a mirage for both of us. I was very well aware that it was a mirage. I don’t feel that I owed him any loyalties.
Liz on the other hand is the only person in the game that I feel I did owe some loyalty to. She took out two people that were gunning for me in the very moment and time that I needed those people gone in Becky and James. Beyond that she had never broken a deal or her word with me. With Austin out of the game I did feel I had her number on loyalty. Not to mention that I’m a big fan of a girl doing well in the game.
All those factors adding up are why I decided to go with Liz.
BBN: You mention feeling betrayed that Steve had another F2 deal, but would you admit you had a lot of them yourself? How did you feel unhappy about his multiple F2 deals but okay with your F2 deals?
Vanessa: The other F2 deals I had were all moot. By the time I formalized my other one with Steve, that was the only one I had. I had one with Austin, but he was in a showmance with a twin which meant not only was that no longer a F2, that wasn’t even a F3. I was now number four on his totem pole. That was out the window. Beyond that I didn’t have another F2 that I’m aware of.
I had briefly spoken to Julia that if the four of us got to F4 with Austin, Liz, and I that with Austin and Liz having primary loyalties to each other, if it came down to Julia choosing between myself or Austin, I made an agreement that she would choose me over Austin and I would choose her over her sister, if it ever came down to it. That’s not really a F2, that’s kinda like a very specific deal. Beyond that, my F2 Steve was the only one I knew about.
It’s important to keep things just vague enough that you can back out of it if you need to but just promising enough that you can front slide in to it if you need to. That’s part of the way I played that game which is a necessary way to play the game. You want to protect yourself for as many possible scenarios as could turn out but while not closing off too many potential options as well.
BBN: One of the first things we saw when the Feeds turned on this season was a scene with you very upset over HGs’ treatment of Steve. That became of the first of many emotional situations for you. Were those emotions real or part of your strategic game and could you tell us about that?
Vanessa: The only strategic aspect of it is being so vulnerable or honest about things, I knew I was building real relationships with people which is a trust building thing. I knew that’d be an asset for creating deals in the future which I believe deals are the primary tool, really the only tool we have in that game. That is the only strategic aspect of it.
As for the emotions you saw, that was like this actually makes me laugh when people are asking about that. Like is it really that big of a newsflash that I’m a human being. I’m a woman. Especially once a month I’m highly emotional. I bet if you timed all of my emotional outbursts they are exactly twenty-eight days apart. Like there’s one time a month when I’m highly emotional and I definitely was at that moment and I’m also a really empathetic person. I feel deeply.
In poker I’m used to playing highly logical then get to go home at the end of the night and processing those emotions privately. So just because I’m able to execute logically, doesn’t mean that there’s not an emotional pull that is taking place and needs to process somehow.
In the Big Brother house, unfortunately, that plays publicly for me. At the end of the day, that was all 100% real and I’m a little [laughs] that everyone had to see it.
BBN: What do you feel was your best strategy move and what might have been your worst moment?
Vanessa: Strategically I would say I really liked the play with Jason really shook up the structure of the house because he was able to unite two corners of the opposite side of the house. You had Jackie and Becky and then you had Meg and James on two opposing corners. Jason was the link between them which made a five-person loosely bonded voting block. Which would threaten the numbers advantage of my alliance.
So picking him out of the equation basically scattered that side of the house in to two twosomes. That was a pretty big move structurally and I think catapulted us in to the middle/late stages of the game. Doing that and not getting blamed for it the following week when James won HoH was something that took a lot of effort and conversations. I was super grateful to get out of that week without having been nominated.
On the other hand, probably not realizing how strategic Steve was being because if I had then I would have realized he would have never taken me to F2. Steve outplayed me in that regard and I’d say that’s what got me.
BBN: The green hat was your signature item. Was there a special importance for it to you?
Vanessa: Mel and I bought it together. Okay, first of all it was really cold. I’m like someone who is normally cold anyways, so I had brought a lot of hats. I normally only where baseball hats, but it was so cold because they were warmer. Plus they were also easier because you wanted to sleep with the lights on and with the beanie you could pull down over your eyes.
Honestly it was just a convenience thing. I’m a creature of habit. Maybe I’m a little bit superstitious that maybe if this thing is working I don’t want to change it up. As a gambler in me, it was definitely superstition.
BBN:What was your biggest surprise of the season?
Vanessa: How emotional Austin’s response to his eviction was. I’m truly floored. If it had been me I would have completely understood the game move. Steve even told me he would have voted for me if I had evicted him. I was completely unemotional about Steve evicting me. I even gave him props. I was hoping he’d make a mistake and not evict me but the fact that he did, kudos to him.
But for Austin, as a self proclaimed superfan, and as I very bright game and strategist, took it so emotionally and was so bitter in the Jury was very shocking to me. Very shocking to me.
BBN: Any mysteries you’re looking to have answered now that you’re out of the house?
Vanessa: So many! Johnny Mac, the one big question mark. I can’t wait to listen to his Diary Room sessions. If I could be a fly on the wall in that man’s brain for just ten minutes. He and I think so differently. He was very entertaining, but I never could get a good read on him and obviously that end up costing me half a million dollars as it turns out with the tie-breaker question. Of all people, of course I missed that question!
Would he have been more loyal to me over Steve or was he a Rockstar through and through like I thought. Was he more strategic like I thought? I hypothesized in the house that he had actually watched Dr. Will’s season and was emulating his strategy. I actually started calling him Dr. McGuire as a joke as a play on it. So I can’t wait to know if he knew more about Big Brother than he was letting on.
BBN: Do you want to know the answer?
Vanessa: Yeah, for sure!
BBN: John is a superfan and he hid it all season.
Vanessa: Wow. Amazing!
Watch my preseason interview with Vanessa Rousso to see how her game adapted this season: