Whoa! Joey Lawrence had some harsh words for his Celebrity Big Brother Season 2 houseguests, especially the women. The Blossom star was the fourth celebrity to exit the 2019 house, and the third evicted. He had the first unanimous eviction of the season. (The Mooch says he didn't quit, he was a fake houseguest as part of a twist, and I'm not buying it either but whatever.)
Celebrity Big Brother operates on a much faster schedule than the extended summer seasons. There are only four weeks, and the houseguests are always talking about making big moves. However, from Joey Lawrence's perspective, there was too much tension and emotion in the house vs. focus on gameplay.
Last season, there were a lot more people who were in the right mind to play this game. This year, people came in hot and emotional. These are grown adults throwing f-bombs. With all the stuff going on in the world today, people want to turn on the TV and watch people having fun with the game.
Bless his heart, but Big Brother fans love drama in addition to gameplay, and celebrities throwing f-bombs at each other is part of the appeal -- at least for some fans. Besides, last season had two quitters. Joey Lawrence is right, though, that this is a particularly emotional group, and he told Entertainment Weekly he believed most of the drama was coming from the women.
There are a couple of sneaky, very manipulative guys like Rick [Williams, former NFL player]. I don’t know him personally and we didn’t have more genuine moments, which is unfortunate because you want to be able to get to know people. That’s part of the game. The women are very emotional. It’s not fun when people are throwing personal insults and dropping f-bombs in the house. It’s pretty crazy.
You could argue that what we're seeing is good gameplay, even if it comes with high emotion. He's right that the energy in the 2019 house has often been toxic and exhausting, and he wasn't really allowed a word in edgewise. It has been ugly, especially this week. But that can be a strategy on its own.
Disregarding Anthony Scaramucci's exit, the three houseguests who have been evicted so far were legitimate threats to win -- Jonathan Bennett, who won the first competition with Ryan Lochte; then Lochte, who was the first Head of Household; and now Joey Lawrence, who was a smart, savvy guy and certainly a threat to win.
Considering this whole season ends on Wednesday, February 13, you have to move fast to take out threats. It's frustrating when the guys are always seen as the bigger threats, but up to this week the men have also been the HoHs in charge of nominations.
Joey Lawrence hesitated when asked if he had fun. He preferred the word "challenge," although he did get along well with Ryan Lochte. He thinks Tamar Braxton is running the house and has the best chance to win this season, since she's "a very powerful person and likes to overpower you with her emotion." He said Tamar is stronger than Lolo Jones, who "is pretty much out of control most of the time." He didn't think Lolo or Natalie Eva Marie would ever stand up to Tamar.
Joey Lawrence also gave little backhanded compliments to Tamar Braxton and Kandi Burruss, saying they're "very good at manipulating moments" because they know the reality TV world so well.
But they’re very good at sucking the energy out of the room and putting on a show. I don’t know them because we had very few genuine moments.
Ouch. So, yeah, he didn't have the best time. But his job isn't actually done. Celebrity Big Brother does things a bit differently in that the evicted houseguests are all members of the final jury. Will Joey be a "bitter" juror and vote against houseguests he doesn't like, or appreciate their gameplay to get to that point?
Celebrity Big Brother Season 2 has been bouncing all over the CBS schedule in the past few weeks, but it continues tonight (Monday, February 4) at 9 p.m. The big two-hour finale airs Wednesday, Feb. 13 on CBS. Here's what else is airing during the busy 2019 TV midseason.
