'Big Brother 25's Felicia Cannon Says Cirie Was "Undermining" Her Game
Felicia Cannon
Big Brother’s house is open once more! Every week, Parade.com’s Mike Bloom will be bringing you interviews with this season's houseguests as they get evicted from the game.
Felicia Cannon is an absolute gas. She walked into the Big Brother 25 house as the oldest woman to ever compete. And 63 years of life experience in the military, multiple educational degrees, and being a victim of domestic abuse made her a beacon of tenacity. Little did she realize, though, how must that (and the faith of a mustard seed) would be tested over her 97 days on Big Brother. Felicia experienced over three months of ups and downs, from winning Head of Household and making one of the first power moves of the season to hitting the block an astounding eight times. And it was that tenacity and story that ultimately kept Felicia out of finale night, as prior loyalties sent her out the door, cackling along the way.
As a devoted fan of Big Brother, it didn't take long for Felicia to submerge herself in the game like one of her many wayward mic packs. Despite facing the first eviction, she survived easily, and catapulted to the top of the house when she won Head of Household. Despite becoming part of the new "Professors" majority alliance, Felicia was already growing tired of her ally Hisam Goueli's behavior. So she put into effect the first backdoor of the season, and cemented herself, Cirie Fields, and Izzy Gleicher as the ones to watch. Unfortunately that got the attention of Cameron Hardin, who took aim at the trio by putting up Felicia and Izzy. Cirie's hand was forced, as she put the numbers in motion to evict Felicia. But a last minute house flip kept her in the game, with a number of cross words for her former number one ally.
No matter whether she was in power or on the block, Felicia remained consistent in her directness. She was not afraid to speak her mind, whether it was against Cirie and Jared Fields for trying to evict her, or calling out Cory Wurtenberger and America Lopez at a veto meeting for their gameplay. Felicia's verbosity also expanded to her strategy, as she often times got caught revealing key pieces of information, to her allies' chagrin. Throughout the jury phase, Felicia was unfortunately regarded as the easy pawn, especially when the trio of Jag Bains, Matt Klotz, and Bowie Jane kept winning competitions to continue their reign in power. After losing the most important Veto of the season at the Final Four, Felicia decided to make one last gasp by doing what she does best: Talk. She went to Jag with a pitch as clinical as invasive toenail surgery, saying this was his chance to take out his biggest competition in Matt. Unfortunately, Jag's loyalty to the "Minutemen" persisted, and the Meme Queen of the season was deposed from her throne upon the nomination chairs.
Now on her way to the jury house, Felicia talks with Parade.com about her up-and-down relationship with Cirie, whether her loose lips helped or hurt her game, and the isolation she felt in the past couple of weeks.
Related: Everything to Know About Big Brother 25
Talk me through your emotions in the house the past couple of weeks, especially your feelings that Jag, Matt, and Bowie Jane were isolating you.
The past couple of weeks were really hard. After a while, you're mentally drained, you're physically drained. And a lot of it is just because you're so tired of being tired. Because as the crowd leaves, there's less and less people to talk to, less and less things to do. And it just becomes exhausting. You don't realize how much energy you spend talking all day, strategizing all day. And so the last couple of weeks, you're like, "Oh, can this just be over?" You really want to just get to Day 100.
I think you kind of get a sense of where you stand in the house, too. And so at some points, you start feeling a little bit of isolation, and you realize, "Oh, things are going awry." But all in all, nothing surprised me in the house, I have to say that. Nothing would surprise me. You realize where people have stronger alliances, and you have to just live with that. And hope that somehow maybe you can push through, maybe show them something that they haven't seen. So the last couple of weeks were difficult. And I think just because, again, the closer you get to the end, you want to just get to the end.
You and Cirie connected from the very first night. Though you were tight personally, you had your occasional lows, like when you found out she attempted to get you evicted, and when you spilled information she told you to Matt and Jag. Talk to me about your relationship, and how you view your dynamic over the season.
Well, me and Cirie did connect on day one in the house. We sat there over in a corner, and we started talking in the living room. And we actually made a Final Two on day one. She promised she would be loyal to me, and I promised I would be loyal to her. And where I messed up was telling Jared that I had a Final Two with her, and I think after that she didn't trust me. And I guess because we were in a Final Four with the Brown Sugar Babes, I thought they actually realized deep down that we probably already had a Final Two anyway. But that was my mistake.
But I think before then, I didn't even realize it, but Cirie was also kind of undermining my game because I felt it. I'm not sure why that started. But we did still genuinely have a friendship that went outside of the game. And I could tell that that was real. So I had to really work hard to separate game and true human friendship. I do believe Cirie is a wonderful person. And again, I do look forward to meeting her outside of the house and being friends with her outside of the house where we can just be completely ourselves without strategy. But, yeah, it was a lot to maneuver. Like I said, I learned off and on throughout the game that she was feeding information that wasn't true with regards to me. And so that that kind of was hurtful. But I realized that was her gameplay, and so I had to just not take it personally. And I would be down for a couple of days; I'd go silent for a couple of days. But I always came back in, because I actually liked her as a person outside of the game.
Several times this season, you ended up revealing key pieces of information. It got to the point, for example, where you revealed to Matt that Cirie didn’t want him and Jag in the Final 4, to try to get ahead of your reputation. Talk about your strategy in being upfront with so much information, and how much it positively or negatively affected your game.
I did reveal a lot of information that was provided to me by Cirie and other people. And I usually only did it when I felt the need. So I would get a lot of information. And I would hold on to it until I realized that I might be in trouble, or somebody else that I thought I needed to protect was in trouble. Or when I thought somebody was trying to lie to me and play me, that's when I would let them know that I had heard other information.
Did it possibly impact my game? Yes, it did. And I think sometimes it worked in a positive way and sometimes it worked in a negative way. For instance, when I let Jag know that he was the target in the house. Cirie was the one who was really trying to push everybody to go after Jag. But, at that point, Jag had become a good ally to me. And so I realized that if I fed him that information, and he could trust that it was true----and it was--then I would gain a whole lot of leeway with him. And as we got closer to the end, I knew I needed Jag's protection. Because, again, I still knew game-wise at some point, Cirie was gonna throw me under the bus. I just felt it. So I had to find somebody outside of Cirie that I thought could help me get further in the game. And that became Jag.
Back during Cory’s eviction, you were pitched a plan to get Bowie Jane to vote with you and Cirie to keep Cory and evict America. Why did you decide to decline the plan, and how do you look back on that decision, considering what happened after that?
At one point, we were thinking of keeping Cory and getting rid of America. But Cory did a lot. He played a great game. He manipulated a lot of people. He and America actually just told straight-out lies. They made stuff up and fed information as truth to other people. And people believed a lot of it. So I realized that it was much smarter to get rid of Cory first because I knew that Cory had hands on everybody in the house. And even though America did a lot herself, America was an easier target to get out. Cory, I figured if we let that opportunity go, we may not get him again on the block. And so Cory had a stronger game than America. A lot of people respected Cory a little bit more than they respected America, game-wise. And so I knew in the end, let's just go with Cory. That's the smarter move. If we remove him, we remove all of America's power. And that's exactly what happened.
Finally, let's get your rapid-fire thoughts on each of the remaining houseguests. Starting with Bowie Jane.
[Laughs, then pauses.] Bowie Jane, Bowie Jane. Bowie Jane was sneaky. She chased the power.
Jag.
[Pause.] Jag had charisma. And Jag was very strategic.
Matt.
Matty Ice was just Matty Ice. He was the All-American guy that everybody loved.
Next, check out our interview with Cirie Fields, who was evicted during the Big Brother 25 Week 13.
