Mecole Hayes admitted that her final words as a Big Brother 25 houseguest were “a little shady.”
The 30-year-old political consultant’s game came to a crashing halt last week after Head of Household Cameron Hardin nominated her alongside Felicia Cannon. The “Space Cowboy” also won the Power of Veto, giving him full control of who sat on the block during week 9.
Although Cameron had a bloodlust for Cory Wurtenberger, fellow “Fugitive” alliance member Jagateshwar “Jag” Bains worked to convince him to keep his nominations the same. Cameron ultimately obliged. Then, later in the week, the target flipped from Felicia to “Meme,” someone who was seemingly destined to slide through the week unscathed.
The likes of Jag, Cory, America Lopez, and Matt Klotz viewed Mecole’s eviction as the best avenue forward. Although she hadn’t picked up a win in Big Brother 25, she was danger-close to snagging the Power of Veto and removing herself from harm’s way.
Like most evictions this season, Mecole was ousted via a unanimous vote. All seven contestants eligible to cast a vote chose to send her packing right before the jury house opened up.
Before Meme walked out the front door, she took the chance to throw a grenade at Cory, the player she viewed as the puppet master who orchestrated her departure. As she said goodbye to her housemates, Mecole exclaimed that Cory, America, and Bowie Jane Ball were working as a tight trio.
There was validity to the claim that the three had a working relationship. But, they were attached to others in the house as well.
Well, now that Meme is out of the house, she’s realized that it wasn’t just Cory who wanted her gone.
“To know that Matt and Jag were planning my demise in this game was also interesting,” Mecole said to Rob Cesternino in a recent Rob Has a Podcast interview.
Matt and Jag played week 9 very well. They made it seem like Cory was the biggest voice behind Mecole leaving, which in turn managed to keep them off her radar. Although Cory and America Lopez were enthusiastically beating the drum, Jag and Matt were all in on the plan and helped bring it to life.
Mecole is privy to that now.
“I think it was a combined effort,” Mecole said. “I think both sets of groups kind of had the idea and was waiting for another to put it on the table. But, once it was brought up in conversation, they realized that these were the four votes that we need to get this done. I think it was like, ‘Okay, we might as well take a shot now.'”
Mecole said her final words in the Big Brother house were geared to help Felicia
Mecole then shared that her claim about Cory, America, and Bowie Jane teaming up to conquer the house was somewhat embellished and that her main motivation for saying it was to help Felicia, her closest ally.
“Was that something that you just threw out there?” Rob asked.
“It was to an extent,” Meme replied. “I had a conversation with America. I think a day or so before I was talking about working with her and Cory moving forward, and she was just kind of mentioning the relationship that they had with Bowie Jane and something that they were working on.
“Obviously, I didn’t think it was that serious. But, I was like, let me throw ‘Mama Fe’ a bone here. Let’s see how this could possibly help her moving forward. Because I know that their strategy is to kind of utilize everyone around them to do their dirty work, and I didn’t want Mama Fe to get caught up in that.
“And then, you know, I was also being a little shady. It was fun.”
Mecole adapted her strategy after the first few evictions, but regrets not playing a more aggressive game
Mecole was viewed by many feedsters as the most passive player in Big Brother 25. Unfortunately for Meme, that was a part of her downfall and something she received a lot of flack for online. However, she said in the interview that existing as a background character wasn’t her strategy going into the reality competition show — she entered the house ready to play a “hardcore game.”
However, Mecole said that after watching the first three evicted houseguests leave the game, two of whom were the outgoing Head of Households (Riley Smedley and Hisam Goueli), she reversed course.
Meme had strong opinions about the happenings of the house. However, instead of sharing it with other players, she’d air out her thoughts alone to the cameras in the storage room.
“I think one of my biggest regrets of the season is obviously not being more forceful and assertive with those opinions very early on with folks I was working in an alliance,” Mecole said.