Kenney Kelley has spoken frequently about wanting to leave “Big Brother 26” since his elimination last week.
In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, the 52-year-old former undercover agent from Boston said that while he does not regret taking part in the CBS reality show, he was not prepared for how difficult the experience would be for him.
“I completely underestimated the emotional aspect. I didn’t realize how much downtime the game entailed,” Kelley said.
“I was really excited about the HOH competition and the nominations and veto competitions and stuff like that,” he continued. “When that part of the week was over, it was time for the social game and working with the alliances. And that’s when I really fell into a hole.”
Kelley faced eviction notices each of the three weeks he was in the house, which he said influenced his motivation to stay.
“And especially because I’m older,” he added. “I didn’t have much in common with a lot of the younger people, and Angela (Murray) put me on the hit list the first week. That completely destroyed our relationship and our ability to work together. That made it difficult. But the next week I was in the game and ready to go. So that’s why it was such a rollercoaster ride.”
Kelley also revealed on the show what his family thought about his attitude towards giving up or not giving up.
“My daughter wasn’t happy about me going anyway. But my wife was really excited and super supportive,” he said. “She had a hard time with it herself, but she had a good support system at home. She said she was yelling at the live broadcasts at the time, telling me to focus on the matter and start doing things, but I obviously couldn’t hear her.”
“There was a lot going on here. Nothing necessarily bad, but my pool turned green, the tree in the backyard fell, the air conditioning stopped working, and my daughter was still having a lot of trouble with me not being in the house. So I’m OK with what happened.”
“I would have liked to give the fans a little more, but to be honest, I really gave them everything I had, especially given the many emotions I went through.”
As for Murray, Kelley said he was “still unhappy” with the 50-year-old real estate agent’s behavior during her first week of HOH rule, in which she yelled at and attacked Kelley ally Matt Hardeman.
“But she’s human,” Kelley noted. “She made some mistakes. She apologized for them. But ultimately, that wasn’t something I was concerned about.”
“Then when she was in the house and didn’t go home, she was very isolated and people wouldn’t talk to her and argue with her all the time,” he continued. “But I wouldn’t do that. And I said it straight to the house: ‘Listen, I’m not going to work with her as a player, but I’m a human being and I don’t want her to feel that way. So I’m going to talk to her and have conversations with her.'”
“So I had a very good conversation with her and said, ‘Hey, I’ll have personal conversations with you, but if we work together, that’s it. The train has left the station.'”
“Big Brother” airs Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays on CBS and Paramount+.
