'Big Brother 25' Winner Jag Bains Talks His Historic Victory
Jag Bains
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"I am standing where I am standing, and you're sitting where you are sitting because I have willed it to be that way. My hands are covered in your blood. I am the most dominant, masterful and strategic player in this house. I don't only deserve to win, I have earned this victory. I am the first Sikh player on Big Brother. And not only that, you all need to make the right decision today so I can be crowned the first Sikh winner of Big Brother. It is the right thing to do and I've earned it every step of the way."
This was part of the impassioned plea Jag Bains made to the jury as faced them on Day 100 of Big Brother 25. It was a bold claim from the entrepreneur, to say the least, considering that, a month into the game, he was sitting in the eviction chairs, unanimously eliminated. But he was granted a second life courtesy of Matt Klotz. And he made good on that second chance, going on to set a record in competition wins and rule the second half of the endgame alongside his "Minuteman." And it was there, sitting in the exact chair that he was evicted in, that Jag won the game of Big Brother, as his physical and strategic prowess made the jury feel the first Sikh houseguest had this game under wraps.
Jag came into Big Brother with a clinical plan. Alongside Reilly Smedley, he formed a complex alliance structure that encapsulated half the house. Unfortunately for Jag, it crumbled within a week. Soon after making "Family Style," Reilly was evicted, and Jag was high on the hit list for the other side of the house. During Cameron Hardin's first HoH reign, he was nominated and decided as the unanimous target as a strategic threat. But there was a path for Jag to survive, a path to power. Matt had won the power to reverse the outcome of an eviction, and he immediately used it to keep Jag. And, though it ended in triumph for Jag ultimately, it nearly became tragic when he was offered up as a pawn the very next week, and the house nearly flipped to send him right back out.
Fortunately for Jag, that did not come to pass. But getting to see the other side of elimination allowed him to rebuild his entire game structure. He locked in with Matt, and the two of them began to navigate the various factions in the house. They crucially brought in Bowie Jane, and the three absolutely dominated the competitions. Jag won ten competitions total in his record-breaking run, including seven Vetos. He was safe nearly every round from the Final Nine to the Final Two thanks to his comp wins. And he used his continued reign in power to systematically take out the rest of the house, from the biggest physical threats through to the biggest endgame threats. In the final couple of rounds, Jag was presented with several opportunities to boot Matt, giving him a substantially easier endgame. But he chose to be loyal to his Minuteman until the final minute. Though seen as a controversial choice, and the harder path, this was Jag's path to power. In his jury speech, he owned the betrayals he had made and distinguished himself from Matt, giving him the win in a 5-2 vote.
Hours after the Big Brother 25 finale, Jag speaks with Parade.com about how much the final results surprised him, his choice to keep Matt until the end, his comments in the house about morality, and the various records he has broken in his gameplay.
Related: Everything to Know About Big Brother 25
Congrats on the win, Jag! It's been a few hours since you left the house. How are you feeling right now?
Thank you so much. I have no idea. I feel like, everything feels like a dream right now. The last 100 days, I feel like I was in an alternate reality. And I don't know where I'm at. I don't know what's happening. I'm still in shock. I never expected to get that far in the game, let alone win. I'm in shock. But I'm definitely on a high right now. I'm so grateful for the whole experience.
You certainly had a lot of passion in your speech. How confident were you that you had the win? Were there any jury votes that surprised you?
The speeches, I knew that I was going to advocate for myself, and I was just going to be passionately who I am. And so I didn't know how the jury would receive it. But all I could do is own up to my game that I played. I didn't want to shy away from that. And so I didn't know how the votes would go. The one vote that I was shocked and relieved and so happy to get was Bowie Jane's vote. Obviously, I had just evicted her. And we have gotten very close over the last few weeks. And so that was the one vote that I was really hoping to get. And I was really happy when I found out that she voted for me.
To that point, as you mentioned in your speech, you had the sole vote the last couple of rounds. And, despite Matt being the bigger threat in the end, you chose to take him to the Final Two chairs. It seemed like you came close particularly to cutting him at four, but how close did you actually get?
I'm someone that I will walk through every option, I will analyze it all the way down to the core, even if I'm not serious about doing it. And so it's true, this is a huge decision. And I truly felt like Matt would beat me in the FinaT two. And so that's why there was so much weight to that decision. And I talked through a lot of that with Bowie Jane as well. And a part of that was also to build trust with her to ensure that she would take me if she won the final HoH too. So, for me, what it came down to is playing my game and staying true to who I am. I wanted to make a decision where I could hold my head up high. I would be proud of how I played my game. My family would be proud of me; hopefully, my community is proud of me. That's what mattered more to me. And so I was not going to turn my back on Matt, who didn't turn his back on me. I'm in this game because of him. And I made a pact with him, that I was gonna go to the very end till the very last minutes with him. And I wanted to honor that.
So you talked about staying true to yourself. And I know on the way out, when you stepped out of the house, you talked about playing with honesty and integrity. I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up a couple of things you'd mentioned the past couple of weeks about how you would felt that you and Bowie and Matt were the only "good people" in the house this season. You had also said at one point that you felt Cirie, Felicia, and Jared were "bullying" you. What made you decide to come to that conclusion about the people you were playing with?
Especially at the beginning of this game, I was in an alliance I was very loyal to, and I felt as though my name was getting floated around in negative ways. Like, "Jag can't be trusted. He's a liar." At least that's what I heard. I don't know what actually. And so I definitely was put into a space again that I felt that I was being bullied in some sense. Maybe not a "capital B" bullied. But in a sense where it was like, if I talked to someone outside of my alliance, I was being asked, "Why are you talking to them?" If I talked to my alliance too much, they're getting assaulted. They'd say, "Don't talk to me." And so there was a lot of that going on.
In no way do I think they are bad people. No one in the house is a bad person at all. For me, what I do is separate personal from game a lot. And so for me, in a game sense, obviously there are people I couldn't work with who made me feel as though I was excluded. In this game, you have to choose who to work with and who not to on a personal level, I love every single houseguest. I have made such beautiful relationships with everyone. And that is what matters to me the most. So game and personal is very different for me.
How much does that game vs. personal apply to the Pressure Cracker situation? I feel like that was an example of where they mixed.
I'm sorry, could you explain that more?
Sure, it's when you, Matt, and Bowie Jane came up with a plan at one point to try to "rattle" Felicia so she wouldn't win HoH by isolating her, giving her the silent treatment, and even banging pots and pans to keep her awake.
Yeah, I mean, obviously, we're trying to come up with different strategies and stuff, how to make it past. I think that one did get out of hand, for sure. I'll own up to that. The whole pots and pans thing, that was a joke. That's not something that ever was going to happen, or that I ever wanted to happen, truly. That's not, I think, true to who I am, or my character, or how I wanted to play the game. And so there are definitely moments where I think that wasn't the best reflection of who I am. I'm not ever gonna claim to be a perfect person. I don't think anyone truly is. All I could do is play the game at the end of the day, where I was true to myself and felt like I would be proud of that.
You have made a name for yourself in so many ways in the history of Big Brother. You're the first Sikh houseguest to both play and win, you have the record for single-season competition records, and you're the first houseguest to win after previously getting evicted. I know it's still fresh, but how do you look back on your legacy in the Big Brother multiverse?
I mean, the most important thing to me was to play the game in a way that stay true to who I am. So hopefully, it shows others that they can do that as well. And they can play the game in a way that's loyal, and it can take them to the end. That was something that was pivotal. Or that was something that was key to how I played the game. In terms of most competitions won, that was honestly a byproduct of the game I was playing. I don't know how many competitions is the most competitions. I'm not a super fan. I didn't study that aspect of Big Brother. I just felt like I really wanted to play and I thought I could do well.
And so the goal wasn't to break the record, because I didn't know what the record was. I was literally just fighting for my life. Eery time I was going into every competition I knew I had to win to keep myself safe, to keep my allies safe, and to move forward in the game. And so I think everything just happened the way it happened. And it's cool now to look back and be like, "Oh, yeah, like I'm the first one to win after getting evicted. I got the most comp wins." But, in the moment, I was not thinking all of that. I was just like, "How do I get past this week? What's the best way to do that? How do I win this competition? How do I protect my people?"
Next, check out our interview with Felicia Cannon, who was evicted during the Big Brother 25 Week 14.
