The cast of “Big Brother” has been under fire all season long, as fans watching the show and the livestreams have accused many of them of bullying fellow houseguest Taylor Hale. Now, evicted star Ameerah Jones is admitting she was part of the problem.
Since day one, Hale has been on the outs with the rest of the cast and at the center of their wrath at the same time — all while appearing to have done absolutely nothing wrong. Things reached an all-time high this week, after Daniel Durston got very confrontational with her over what seemed like a misunderstanding of Taylor’s kindness.
It got so bad that Head of Household Matthew “Turner” even called out the house in his Veto meeting speech on Thursday — saying he wouldn’t be putting Taylor up for eviction because he didn’t “want to add to the dog pile” he felt had been already heaped on her.
“Behind closed doors a lot of you say some crazy things about individuals, and I really don’t want to draw a line in the sand saying this, but as the youngest one in this House, I don’t feel like I should be the one to say it’s not okay. But here I am,” he continued. “There’s been a lot of bullying of Taylor in the House. And while I don’t think that I have been perfect, either way it stops today.”
He then put Ameerah and her Festie Bestie Terrence Higgins up for elimination, leading to Hale getting totally blindsided by a new alliance called The Leftovers — an alliance which includes Taylor.
Speaking with Us Weekly following her eviction, Hale was asked point blank whether she could see the “dog pile” Turner was referring to and whether Taylor did anything in particular that made her not like her.
“Honestly, there was no reason to dog pile on her, she definitely did not deserve that. I have to admit that there was definitely some things that I said as well as other people in the house that probably shouldn’t have been said,” she responded. “As far as like dog-piling on her, it was in the beginning, it was because she said a lot of snarky things to people as how we perceived them. A lot of things were said under her breath and honestly, they weren’t that bad, at all to deserve that.”
Ameerah said that after a few of those alleged side-comments, they started to believe they couldn’t trust her. When asked if things went “too far” at times, Hale said, “Absolutely.”
“In the beginning, it was kind of just, like, we’re in this game right now and we are strategizing and we’re just trying to be careful with everybody. And if anybody does anything, we automatically just didn’t trust them,” she continued. “But as it went along, some people, I would hear them saying more inappropriate things. And so, at one point, there was a blowup and I had to start saying things to people, like that I think that it was inappropriate. It started off small, but it just kept snowballing and a lot of people were saying things that probably shouldn’t have been said.”
She also claimed that she did call out Daniel for his outburst and said she not only defended Taylor after the blowup, but went to speak with her one-on-one to “make sure she felt okay” and tell her that Durston’s comments were “inappropriate” and “wrong.” Hale said she tried to straighten out the misunderstanding with Nicole as well, since she witnessed everything leading up to the incident.
“I also regret not standing up for Taylor sooner rather than later,” Ameerah concluded. “I think a lot of it could have been put to an end had I been more aware of the situation and conversations that were happening in other rooms and how it was going to be building up to this big escapade.”
“Big Brother” airs Sunday, Wednesday and Thursdays on CBS.
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