Devout Big Brother superfan and Unlocked cohost Jerry O’Connell has a lot of opinions about Rome Seymour and Lyric Medeiros’ romance following the pickleball coach’s recent eviction.
“These two were together for hours, and they were already dropping love bombs,” O’Connell, 52, exclusively tells Us ahead of the new episode of Big Brother: Unlocked on Friday, July 24. “This guy was dropping an L-bomb. I think 12 hours into their relationship.”
In addition to Rome and Lyric quickly developing strong feelings for each other, O’Connell was enthralled by the couple’s intimate conversations — and cuddles — that took place on the Have-Not bed, which is a circular wooden plank that rotates. (Each week multiple Big Brother houseguests become have-nots where they must endure tougher living arrangements including eating slop, taking cold showers and sleeping in a room that lacks traditional beds.)
“He said on a wooden rotating bed, ‘I want to make babies with you.’ … I mean, that is the power of the Big Brother house,” O’Connell quips. “That is why Big Brother is the best unscripted show on TV … other shows aren’t saying, ‘I want to make babies with you’ on a wooden rotating bed.”
Rome was ultimately evicted by his fellow houseguests — which included his own girlfriend — on Thursday, July 23. While O’Connell can’t fathom how Rome and Lyric got so close in two weeks, the TV host confesses that he was “very bummed” to see Rome leave.
“I really thought Rome, who for your readers if they don’t know, was sort of this alpha guy who was sort of gathering a few troops,” he says of Rome’s gameplay. “He was a newbie. He wasn’t one of the icons from Survivor. I really felt he was the only one who could really go for the king and queen, being Dee [Valladares] and [Rick] Devens from Survivor. He just had a showman. I think that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.”
The actor adds that being part of the season’s first showmance also didn’t help lower Rome’s threat level.
While O’Connell is always tuned in to Big Brother every summer, this season is extra special as he was named a cohost to the series’ companion show, Unlocked. O’Connell joins former winners Taylor Hale and Derrick Levasseur to discuss season 28 and give the audience sneak peaks of what’s in store for the houseguests.
O’Connell shares that the Friday episode of Unlocked will feature “some super exclusive secret content” that involves the players.
“I am the one who personally [breaks] the news. I am brave enough to go into the Big Brother house and I extract. I’m like Odysseus in the Odyssey. I extract information out of the Big Brother house,” he teases. “It is huge news. It will affect the rest of the season.”
Big Brother: Unlocked airs on CBS on Fridays at 8 p.m. ET while Big Brother proper airs on CBS Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.
