'Big Brother Canada' Season 12: Anthony Douglas, Lexus Jackson bite back at Victoria 'Spicy Vee' Woghiren's gameplay
"It was literally like watching a five-year-old throw temper tantrum. There was no grace in her exit," Douglas said
From shouting and backdoor evictions, to showmances and emotional personal stories, Big Brother Canada Season 12 was a ride, for both the houseguests and the audience. But in this week's finale, Lexus Jackson from Toronto and all-star Anthony Douglas from Richmond, Hill, Ont., just missed the big win, losing to Bayleigh Pelham from Halifax.
"I think Bayleigh played a great game," Douglas, who was the runner up this season, told Yahoo Canada. "I think socially she did very, very well."
"She didn't really have much control or power, but I do think that she was in a pretty good standing with majority of the people in the game. I feel like she did a great job at delivering her message of how she thinks she played, compared to me. So she definitely is a deserving winner."
"I think that she was just very much herself," Jackson, who came in third place, added. "I think that she does a really good job of putting herself out there and she made really good personal relationships."
Catch up on Watch Big Brother Canada Season 12 live and on demand by adding the STACKTV channel to a Prime Video subscription, 14 days free then $12.99/month
Despite Jackson being particularly loyal to Douglas, the all-star returning player decided to take Pelham to the final two after the Head of Household (HoH) competition, thinking that he had a better chance of winning over Pelham.
"I didn't anticipate what betraying Lexus would feel like," Douglas admitted. "I played all of the game with her and at the end I made a very heartbreaking decision that actually really hurt me."
"Having played this game before, you understand it's just a game, you always tell yourself it's just a game, but when you do things that are very gamey, that impacts you a lot more than what people realize. So I've had a good opportunity to talk to Lex about how I feel and how she feels."
"He's seen my whole journey throughout this game, he knew a lot about my personal life, and then also just my journey of not really fitting in with the girls, and them kind of pushing me away for no reason," Jackson said. "And so to have that happened to me from him, it was a tough pill to swallow."
"But I do understand that it was a good game move. There was a piece of me that was going to vote for him in the end, so I did have a sense of respect for his game and for how far he had come. ... I'm not going to harbour any resentment or hard feelings."
'It was literally like watching a five-year-old throw a temper tantrum'
One of the most dramatic moments from the whole season was when Victoria "Spicy Vee" Woghiren was evicted from the house, with an exit orchestrated by Douglas, who she thought would have stood by her side much longer. It's something that Woghiren was clearly still bitter about in the finale.
"Victoria had been lying a lot in the game and I had been picking up on it from very early in the season, I saw the type of game that she was playing," Douglas explained. "She was everyone's final two, she was telling every single person the exact same things, but would try to assure every single person that they're her actual number one."
"Being an all-star, you would think that she would respect the game move that I made in the game, that I played, but she was just extremely emotional and bitter. The whole last two days, I'm not sure what was aired, or how much of it was aired, but it was literally like watching a five-year-old throw temper tantrum. There was no grace in her exit. She was smashing things, being rude and just being herself. ... I have no regrets."
For Jackson, she felt like Woghiren gave her "a lot of empty promises."
"Her actions never aligned with her words," Jackson said. "She was making final twos, final threes with everybody ... You didn't understand what you meant to her, and that became a problem."
'I don't need to be the one relaxing someone else'
But for Jackson, her significant struggle in the house was feeling like she wasn't given an opportunity to get close with the other women.
"I have experienced that a lot in my past, so it wasn't an unfamiliar territory for me," Jackson said. "I feel that I'm a very, very calm, zen person, and so I have a lot of male friends that I just tend to feel this sense of security with. I feel they bring a certain type of calmness to my mind."
"I'm allowed to let myself relax and I don't need to be the one relaxing someone else. So I didn't really care. I didn't have a desire to be liked. I didn't care that the girls didn't vibe with me. They didn't even really give me a chance or give me an opportunity to open up, just right away. They were like, 'Oh she isn't similar to me and that might be threatening to me. That might be somebody that we have to watch out for.' But they hadn't even given me an opportunity to be myself."
'My whole purpose completely changed'
Douglas, coming back to Big Brother after originally being on Season 7, says he was playing the game for his brother, opening up about his mother's health issues and losing her job, and his brother's death shortly before going into the house.
"I always thought about coming back, I for sure would have come back regardless," Douglas said. "I had to make a very tough decision. I didn't want to go into the house an emotional wreck and put myself in a position where I'm not going to be able to perform or to be successful."
"Me and my brother had a lot of plans and a lot of goals this year, we promised to hold each other accountable, to really live up to our potential and just try harder with everything in life. So when he passed, I was crippled, I just wanted to do this for him. My whole purpose completely changed and I just kept hearing him saying, you have to do this, this is exactly what we've been talking about. I'm going to be with you the whole time. And I felt him with me the entire time."
