Reality competition series Big Brother sees 16 people from across America enter a house where they reside for the summer, cut off from the rest of the world, competing against one another for half a million dollars. Each week, players compete in physical and mental competitions, and go about mundane daily lives, trying to form bonds with others, and plot to get out the biggest competitors, or, let’s face it, simply people they don’t like or aren’t aligned with.
Usually, it would stand to reason that the best player wins. But the complex nature of the game means that sometimes the most deserving person doesn’t win because of a bitter jury of voters (people who have already been evicted), or because the person sitting next to them in the finals is more popular or ruffled fewer feathers (or none). Here are 10 runners-up who deserved to win, but had to settle for second place.
Dan Gheesling
Yes, he had already won before. But the second time Gheesling played, he really did deserve to win a second time but got robbed when the jury went with the far more likable Ian Terry. On season 7, after taking Terry under his wing, the young superfan proved that he had learned a lot from watching every season and looking up to players like Gheesling and managed to win against the ultimate champ with a jury vote of 6-1.
Terry played a great game, but the fact that Gheesling held that memorable funeral for himself, won six competitions, and got out one of the biggest competitors, Mike “Boogie” Malin, means he really should have gotten the chance to make history and win another million.
Tyler Crispen
Playing an almost flawless game, winning tons of competitions, making friends with everyone and every side of the house while remaining in the majority alliance, pulling strings, and making multiple final two deals, Crispen should have won. But he didn’t.
He lost to his friend Kaycee Clark, who won with a vote of 5-4, showing that some people who Crispen orchestrated getting out felt he played too dirty for their liking. Clark, meanwhile, stayed under the radar and remained on everyone’s good sides. But while she was part of the majority alliance, Crispen is the one who played much harder.
Paul Abrahamian
Not once, but twice Abrahamian sat in the hot seat for the final two and came up short both times. The first time, he lost to Nicole Franzel, who did play hard but employed a more low-key style. Because Abrahamian made a lot of enemies in the house and on the jury, however, he came up short, though he did earn four votes.
The second time, even Abrahamian himself was shell-shocked that the jury voted for Josh Martinez, who was just as brash as him during the time in the house and made his own selection of enemies. In the end, however, a few clever and revealing goodbye messages from Martinez helped sway the jury in his favor, and Abrahamian saw the win slip away again, even though he played a hard enough game to justify it.
Natalie Martinez
Jordan Lloyd was a sweetheart in the game who could do no wrong and was well-liked in the house. But she wasn’t exactly a really strategic player and sort of coasted to the finale.
Meanwhile, Martinez, who sat beside her in the finals, only snagged two jury votes to Lloyd’s five, mainly because many of the people on the jury were bitter about her ruthless gameplay. Still, in terms of who was more deserving, Martinez should have been awarded the win.
Michael “Cowboy” Ellis
Losing out to Drew Daniel, his ally, Ellis was on season 5 when the Project DNA twist saw people competing with relatives they didn’t know they had. Ellis discovered he was in the house with his half-sister, Jennifer Dedmon.
He got 3 of the 7 jury votes, just narrowly missing the win. Sadly, while he tried to get on the show again for a second shot, he missed out twice, both on All-Stars and Big Brother 11. For his dedication to come back and trying again (twice!) he deserved to have won the first time around.
Alison Irwin
She lost out to Jun Song, who is considered the first “floater,” before the term was being used, to win the game. She coasted along, under the radar, not ruffling any feathers or doing much of anything, really. This led to her win by a vote of 6-1.
Irwin, meanwhile, flirted and manipulated her way through the game, formed an all-girl alliance called Girl Power (that included Song), and ended up choosing to take Song with her to the final two. The jury ended up calling Song the “lesser of two evils” but Irwin’s strong play, including being taken off the block three times through the use of the Power of Veto, should have been enough to secure her the win.
Danielle Reyes
The victim of a very bitter jury, many believe that Reyes should have won the season instead of Lisa Donahue, who the jury almost unanimously voted as the winner because they didn’t appreciate Reyes’ unflattering diary room comments.
In fact, it was for this very reason that Big Brother opted to sequester the jury in subsequent seasons so they remained somewhat impartial, voting only on what they saw in the house, and what information new jury members provided them.
Ross Mathews
One of many victims of a bitter jury, Mathews, a super fan of the show and former host of the after-show web series where he interviewed evicted houseguests, Mathews lost Celebrity Big Brother to Marissa Jaret Winokur in a vote of 6-3.
Jaret Winokur played a mostly low-key game, simply trying to stay off everyones’ radars and being the spunky, fun houseguest. She went through the entire game without ever once being nominated for eviction. Meanwhile, Mathews played hard and made bold moves, but in the end, that ended up being his downfall.
Holly Allen
OK, hear us out. While Jackson Michie totally deserved to win the latest season, having played a hard game where he had to fight against former allies who turned against him and concoct masterful plans to inch out a win, he could not have done any of it without Allen.
She traded consecutive HoHs with him, leaving the showmance pair in constant power. She threw competitions and voted certain ways to protect both of them, just as he did. And while she might not have played as aggressively as Michie, and let him call many of the shots, she was integral to his win. And as a much more well-liked competitor, it would have been nice to have seen her take home the win instead.
Porsche Briggs
With her grating laugh, constant crying, and penchant for the dramatics, Rachel Reilly played hard. Really hard. Ironically, she played a similarly ruthless, egotistical, and hard game as other players like Abrahamian and Martinez, yet somehow still got the win despite that.
Placing second was Porsche Briggs, who received three votes to win, just narrowly missing out, despite having won tons of HoHs, aligning with many people in the house (including, at one point, Reilly herself), and making it through the Pandora’s Box twist (that she initiated as HoH).
