For “Big Brother” fans who watched the show on the live feeds this season, Ashley Hollis defeating four-time Head of Household Vince Panaro in the Season 27 finale didn’t really come as a surprise. However, if you only casually followed along with the edited show on CBS, the young lawyer’s win may have seemed a tad out of nowhere.
“I haven’t watched the show all the way back yet, but the things that shocked me the most were probably like Ava, Rylie and definitely Vince. As people saw on my Instagram, me and Vince were never close. I never even wanted to work with him. That was all strategy. I wanted him out since the early days. But then I started seeing he could take me further. The connection with Morgan — that was always two votes that I would have, because him and Morgan were obviously very close, as people saw. Morgan was running that man in the game,” Hollis told TheWrap. “I knew I would always be safe with him, even though we didn’t really vibe. But to see how my name was in his mouth 24/7, I’m like, OK, his breath must have been hot.”
“I wasn’t the biggest fan of Vince, but he definitely wasn’t on the forefront of my mind every single day like I was on the forefront of his. That shocked me,” Ashley added. “Ava’s comments about Rachel shocked me, Ava’s comments even about me the first few weeks shocked me. That was a one-sided beef, fully, I did not have beef with Ava. And I think Rylie, hearing that he said he wanted to trip me, seeing the way he talked to Katherine. Those three things shocked me.”
“I’ve also seen that they edited me and Rachel to be kind of like mean girls. Anybody who knows me knows I am not mean. I actually was just sticking up for myself because Keanu had been talking down on me for a minute. So I thought it was interesting how they edited that, yeah,” she continued. “But I’m so happy for him, me and him totally squashed our beef. I’m sure they probably didn’t show it, but we were actually fine. Obviously, he voted for me to win and voted to keep me over Will.”
Still, the 25-year-old attorney would happily return as an All-Star despite not getting a stellar edit on the linear show.
“I’ve seen the circulation of an all-winner season. I would definitely do something like that,” Ashley said. “Hopefully I’ll get a better edit, because I’ve been hearing from the fans the edit of me was not accurate. So I would love to do it again so people can actually see my game that aren’t just on the live feeds.”
“The memes are insane. I love the memes. I actually just got a Twitter two days ago, and I said I’ve been seeing them, I’ve been scrolling. I’m kind of addicted, actually,” she noted. “It was kind of crazy coming out and seeing all the memes. In the house, it’s definitely this bubble. You have no idea what’s going on in the outside. So it’s comforting to know that people liked me and I loved all the memes. Only some of them I remember.”
So what pop culture moments from the summer shocked Ashley the most upon returning to the real world last week?
“Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Love it. So happy for them. Also, Selena Gomez getting married. And then the girl from ‘Stranger Things’ adopted! I was like, did Diddy go to jail? But then I found out it doesn’t happen until today.”
A less shocking moment for casual viewers during last week’s finale came when Keanu received 65% of the public’s vote to beat Rachel and Will for America’s Favorite Houseguest.
“I was very surprised. I definitely thought my girl Rachel had it in the bag. I get it, because casual viewers — but his reads, I’m trying to keep it cute, but just completely off of the game,” Ashley admitted. “I mean, I remember having a conversation with him, like Week 2 or 3, but he didn’t want to work with me because he literally thought he was fine. I said we should band together, because I was an easy target, you’re an easy target to go up week after week. And he was like, people are not going to put me up again. And you went on the block, like, three weeks in a row.”
And even if former champ Rachel didn’t become the first official two-time winner of “Big Brother” (“Reindeer Games” doesn’t really count), she certainly walked away with real-life friendships.
“I absolutely adore Rachel. She is the best. She has just so much knowledge of the game. And not only that, on a personal level, she’s a girl’s girl through and through. I wish everybody got to see the real Rachel, because she is the sweetest, kindest person,” Ashley gushed. “I remember one time she gave me an outfit that she thought would look good on me that she hadn’t even worn yet. Like, she is just a kind girl. I remember when I was on the block, she was crying more than I was, like she was so down, mad and stressed. That just shows how caring of a person she is. She’s really an empath. She feels other people’s emotions. I just can’t say enough.”
“Big Brother” returns for Season 28 next summer, with all past seasons currently available to stream on Paramount+.
