Big Brother's Week 4 eviction signified a very unthinkable development. That night, it seemed probable that Makensy Manbeck or Rubina Bernabe would be evicted. However, what viewers ultimately witnessed was the house flipping and blindsiding Cedric Hodges. The Week 3 Head of Household broke down in tears following his eviction but, as he noted to CinemaBlend, it wasn't because he was hurt or upset he didn't win the big prize money. He not only explained the true reason to us but also revealed a habit had trouble breaking.
After streaming Big Brother's extended interview with Cedric following his eviction with my Paramount+ subscription, I still had questions about why he was crying. As some might expect, the young marine didn't have a selfish reason for his tears and explained what was going through his mind as he sat out there with Julie Chen Moonves. It seems the exact reason was much more personal:
I wasn't crying because I didn't win, and I wasn't crying because like I lost out on $750,000. I was crying because you make those connections so fast. And I felt like I had to leave my twelve best friends in the house. So like it was an emotional goodbye as if you were at the airport, saying goodbye to your mom for a while.
Cedric's feelings are certainly valid. After all, he was suddenly thrust out of the house after spending a full month there, with 12 people waving goodbye as he left. Not only is he out of the house, but he can't contact most of those people until the game is over. That has to be a hard pill to swallow, especially for someone as kind as Cedric appeared to be while in the house.
It sounds like everything else is secondary to losing friends, but there are some house-specific habits Cedric had to break after leaving the game. I asked if he had to remember that he could now sing licensed songs freely, but it turned out he was hung up on something else entirely:
Most definitely, just because the Big Brother House becomes so ingrained into who you are as a person. So when you leave, you still have some tendencies. Even today, I was like, asking if I could wear some clothes, which is neither here nor there. So definitely. It'll be a part of me for a while.
There are a limited number of activities Big Brother contestants can perform while in the house and, sometimes, the producers even control what they can wear. While it seems like shirts for specific colleges are allowed to be worn, most of what Houseguests wear is logo-free and clean. Of course, now that Cedric is out of the game, he no longer has to worry about this rule.
While he didn't win the grand prize, Cedric Hodges should've received the modest sum that all Big Brother Houseguests are paid, given his time on the show. It's not enough to quit your day job or anything, though it seems some Houseguests are able to live off it for a while and visit other Houseguests or appear on other reality shows. I think there's a chance we could see Cedric on another reality show in the future. Now that he's wiped away his tears, I'm hoping that his entertainment career will continue and he'll find his way to another series, on which he won't be eliminated.
Big Brother airs on CBS on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET and on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET amid the 2024 TV schedule. Stream the live feeds with a Paramount+ subscription and check out the Big Brother channel on Pluto TV as well.
