'Big Brother 25' Fan Favorite Cameron Hardin Takes Us Inside the Jury House

Cameron Hardin

Big Brother’s house is open once more! Every week, Parade.com’s Mike Bloom will be bringing you interviews with this season's houseguests as they get evicted from the game.

Cameron Hardin seemed to live on throughout Big Brother 25. After being nominated twice as a pawn early on, Cameron won his first of many competitions in Week 4, putting him suddenly on the radar of everyone in the house. Despite becoming the communal target, he was able to keep himself safe through various wins. And when he found himself in power, he became "Chaos Cam," hiding his best-laid plans from even his closest allies. Though the tactics made for great television and helped turn the house upside-down, they did nothing to benefit Cameron's game. He was backdoored and evicted unanimously, only to be granted a second chance via a weeklong "Zombie" twist.

But Cameron's second life in the game surprisingly mirrored the first. He won HoH as the house target, targeted a tight duo, had a vote flip happen under his reign, then get backdoored and voted out immediately the next week. This time, though, Cameron joined the jury, as he watched as the trio who planned his blindside in Bowie Jane, Jag Bains, and Matt Klotz dominate the endgame, picking up where he left off. He proudly cast a vote on finale night, helping give Jag $750,000. Little did he know, though, that the last prize of the night would be for him. Cameron beat Matt and Cirie Fields for this season's title America's Favorite Houseguest, leaving him speechless and his voluminous hair standing on end.

Hours after the Big Brother 25 finale, Cameron speaks with Parade.com about his surprised reaction to being a fan favorite, what went down at the jury roundtable, and how he looks back on his game.

Related: Read our eviction interview with Cameron Hardin

To say you were shocked to win America's Favorite Houseguest would be an understatement. When you hear that it's you, Matt, and Cirie as the finalists, what was your reaction when you found out it was you?
 still don't have the words. I'm gonna try though. Big Brother has been my favorite television show since 2001. I mean, I remember laying on the floor, watching all of it and just falling in love with the game. And for fans of my favorite show, to name me their favorite player of the monumental 25th season is so humbling. What an honor. I can't believe it. I cannot say thank you thank you enough. And I don't know who had the most big part in even getting my name out there as much as possible. But I cannot believe that I was named the favorite player of the season. What an amazing season, too!

Well let's talk about the end of said season. You mentioned putting your key in the box that you promised Jag you would vote for him. But was there anything he did in the finale that made you lock in your vote for him?
I told Jag that I was gonna vote for him for the house. I knew then, I was like, "Man, if you make it to those chairs, if everything that we've talked about in the plans that you and I have, to put the plans that you have that you've let me in on, let me see, if those work out and you make it to the final chairs, you absolutely have my vote. You just got to get three more. Once you make it that far, you got me. Like I said when I put the key in the boxes, I told the man about a month ago that I was gonna vote for him. So here it is.

We had heard from Dr. Will in another interview that this was the most "heated" jury roundtable he was a part of. Apparently there was a lot of conflict and arguments. However, we got none of that in the final edit. Can you clarify what happened in the moment?
I'm a pretty calm guy when it comes to the heat of battle stuff. So the only times we really had to break was for planes or sound stuff or whatever. It's just normal activity. The only heat that really came was between Felicia and Cirie every now and then. Or Cirie would talk her peace to Cory. And me, Blue, and America never really got thrown in really hard in the mix. We're a very opinionated group. Now we try our best to curb our thoughts and to be kind to one another, because we're family. We've lived together for three months now. But thoughts and emotions are going to come out whenever you feel like you've gotten wronged.

The only part that came through was the fact that Felicia was so fresh out of the house. Now the rest of us in the jury had the opportunity to come to grips with what had happened, to talk to each other about our moves, what we did in this moment, who said this. Who lied to who? Why'd you do that? Are you really on the outside? So we all had a moment to kind of to kind of circle the wagons and get to know each other and what we did in the game.

Felicia was still fresh out of the house. And she had a lot of questions that she had for us, and a lot of thoughts and opinions going into it that we were like, "No, that's not really the way that it was." So she kind of went into it with a little hothead. And I don't blame her. She just didn't know a lot. If we had an opportunity to talk in the jury house prior to the roundtable, we probably would have went into with fresher heads. But Felicia is very opinionated person. She's gonna say everything she wants to say. And Cory definitely has to let people know how smart he is. So what happens?

To that point, what was it like for you to interact with these people in the jury that you were not so friendly with in the house? I would imagine it's this weird dichotomy where you're still in the game, but not really.
Understanding Matt and Jag's kind of roadmap for the rest of their game, I could kind of map out who was going to come into the house next,.I could kind of see what was happening in the landscape, who's going to win this when they're going to come in. So I tried to kind of predict moods coming into the house and how people were going to be upset. Once Cory came in, everything was good. We had an opportunity to sit down and talk. And he and I didn't have a lot of stuff to hash out. It was really just who are you? Are you cool? Are we cool? What's going on? And then once we got there, let's go shoot pool ,have a beer or something.

When blue and America showed up, Cory and I had predicted a double. So we weren't shocked. I know Cory was happy to have America come in the house. So the two of them kind of did their own thing and left me and Blue to kind of hang out just read books and chill and shoot the shit and cook together and kind of hang out with with the other sequester managers, the people that were there with us. We had the opportunity to kind of just relax. So there was no tension in the house. Jury house was pretty cool, pretty chill. Cirie coming in, she was a little bit of a firework. But after a night of chilling with her and hanging out and letting her just kind of relax, woke up the next morning, everything was just like family again. And we just kind of hung out and waited for the next moves. So the jury house was fireworkless. And it was actually pretty, pretty cool to hang out with everybody kind of see that side of everybody.

Did you get a sense that the jury was solidly in Jag's favor going into the finale? Or had people not made their minds up?
I thought it was pretty solidly in favor of Jag going in. I was a little bit taken aback by Cirie and Felicia's vote. And then after I thought about it a little bit more. I was like, "Ah, it makes sense." Whenever Cirie talked about the fact that she's extremely loyal, and I knew that her vote for Matt was something that she based on loyalty, even though it should have been based on her opinion of the greatest player in the game. And she gave some pretty solid arguments for Matt. But I know that she and I had talked about it, and we understood that Jag made the absolute most moves between the two of them. So he was deserving of the win. As for why Felicia voted for Matt, I'm not necessarily sure. I mean she kind of proved me right in that sense, where I knew she probably wasn't going to vote for the absolute winner, the person that deserved it the most. And in my opinion, that was Jag. So I knew that her vote was interesting at best, but it didn't shock me.

Talk to me about your relationship with America. At several points in the season, we saw you say that you wished Cory didn't make the jury so you could be with her in the jury house where there were no cameras. At one point, I believe you said you couldn't control yourself around her. Can you respond to these remarks that you’ve made?
America and Cory, two amazing people. I love playing the game with them. I had a sense that America's game was a bit flirtatious moving in. So in no way shape or form was I trying to get in the middle of any of that between her and Cory, I just leaned into a little bit of the flirtatious stuff, and tried my best to play that game. And it worked in my favor a few times, because she was a big proponent of my game and definitely fed me information that she should not have fed me and went to bat for me for a few people that she probably should have gone to bat for me. So did it work in my favor? Yes. I don't know how it's all going to be perceived or viewed. But she's a great friend of mine. And I hope that we remain friends outside of the house. 

We saw at the jury roundtable that Cirie said your social game "sucked," which you agreed with. Considering how eventful your journey has been, how do you look back on it, especially with it ending with the fan-favorite prize?
That has a lot of questions. There's a lot to cover in that topic. Having been the Big Brother superfan that I am, looking back on my own game, I know that I did not necessarily have a great social game. Not that I didn't want to, I absolutely wanted to, but the cards were against me. They were with all my favorite players who played and could overcome some of the hurdles that they had. It made it pretty hard for me. Because if you were ever in favor of Cameron in the house, that made you a target. So not only was it hard for people to work with me, it made it extremely hard for people to be even seen talking to me. So my social game was very hard to turn on.

There were aspects of it when I definitely did a lot more. When I was evicted and came back. I had the opportunity to have a bit more of a social game because I had planted some of those seeds during the Zombie week. had a couple of people to lean on a little bit. Not knowing how long my stay was going to be, I tried to amp up a little bit more of my social game, and I hope that that came through. But no, there were aspects of my social game that were extremely lacking. So I had to agree with Cirie on that one.

But playing as hard as I did, back against the wall, I knew every opportunity that I wasn't HoH, I was going to be on the block, and that's exactly what happened. So having to work through all of those things and keep in my head, staying calm, remaining true to myself, and just trying to keep my best character throughout the entire game was all I could really clingn too. And try to be the best version of myself and make every one of the people back home who loved me make them proud of the person that I was inside of the house, and hopefully my character shins through. And as I've said before, I think Bertha was a pretty good help out there. I think the hair took me a long way. So I can't wait to see how far that gets me outside the house.

Next, check out our interview with Bowie Jane, who was evicted in the Big Brother 25 finale.