Kenney Kelly, the 52-year-old former undercover cop from Boston, was the third houseguest to be evicted from the Big Brother house. The TV Watercooler caught up with Kenney following his eviction to discuss what it was like experiencing Angela’s kitchen blow up, Tucker’s Power of Veto Ceremony, and a fan-theory about a ‘Twin Twist.’
As a Big Brother viewer, what was the biggest adjustment to being inside of the house (other than being away from your family)?
It would be the complete disconnect and the inability to reach out to people. [You don’t know] what’s happening in the world. It’s amazing how much a picture, an email, or a text message goes until you don’t have them!
So, that was the biggest adjustment. But also sleeping with the lights on! I picked the wrong room in the house. Those lights were on most of the time.
It’s only been three weeks and it’s been a wild three weeks. As a viewer, how did you feel about experiencing everything that has happened in the house?
I guess while playing the game, you don’t see as much as the fans at home. I really felt that the game was moving kind of slowly. You don’t realize how much downtime you actually have in the house until you’re there. Obviously Angela and then Tucker blowing things up [were big moments]…
Doing the HOH, then the nominations, then the veto competition, and then the veto meeting kept me moving and made me think about that game. But once that’s over, you have two or three days of absolutely nothing other than your conversations with people – scheming and trying to get alliances together. That’s obviously when your emotions kick in and you’re not able to really be yourself. I wasn’t able to be 100% in the game because in my head, obviously, I was thinking about my family – my wife and my kids.
What went through your mind during Angela’s confrontation in the kitchen?
I’ll be completely honest about how the whole thing started with Angela. I thought she was a plant! I didn’t think that she was a real houseguest. I thought that she was put in there by Ainsley and that she was part of the show. I was wrong!
She kind of blew up and went a little bit off script even though there was absolutely no script at all. I felt bad for her and it was difficult to watch. She was having a hard time. She wasn’t sleeping and she was reading too much into the game. She was trying to play too hard too fast and started panicking and that panic turned into anger.
I didn’t want to be part of it but I ended up getting roped into at one point. But I tried to stay out of it as much as I could.
Did you try to stick up or comfort those who she targeted, like Matt and Lisa?
Angela targeting Matt was really difficult for me because I really did feel bad for him. I do know that he’s a real good person, even though I only knew him for a couple of days, but he seemed to come from a great home and he had a lot of positive things [going for him] in his life. I took a liking to Matt and I think we bonded on Day 1 and it seemed like we were going to work together.
I took on the father role and I tried to comfort him and tried to keep him in the game.
With Lisa, it was a little different. She was a little older than Matt. Matt was in his early 20s and I think Lisa was in her 30s. Lisa stood up for herself. I didn’t need to stand up for Lisa. She kind of took it and I did feel bad for Lisa, but she was kind of her own worst enemy sometimes in the house. She was rubbing people the wrong way during certain periods.
What are your thoughts on how things played out with Tucker at the Power of Veto Ceremony?
It didn’t go exactly how I thought it was going to go because I thought we were able to talk Tucker a little bit out of it. I knew he was wavering when he brought the idea to us. I thought it was kind of crazy. I thought it was a week too early [to put Quinn up]. But Tucker was adamant that things were moving too slow and he wanted to shake things up. Even when Cedric told him that we didn’t have the votes to do it, he was still adamant about doing it.
Up until about an hour before the Veto meeting, I was having conversations with him about working it out, and I asked, “Are you really sure you want to do this?” And he was like, “Absolutely! I’m doing it.” He just looked around the room [during the Power of Veto Ceremony] and looked at Quinn and knew that he had his hands in just about every cookie jar in that house.
Did you discuss any of the potential outcomes of the A.I. challenge with the houseguests to see how the votes would land?
I firmly believe that if Tucker was up there with me, he would have gone home and I would have stayed. Tucker’s a huge threat in the house. They kind of did the same thing to Matt. They flipped the boat on Matt and got rid of Matt. I thought Brooklyn was going to orchestrate getting rid of Tucker. I really didn’t want that to happen.
The best-case scenario was someone else getting put on the block and Tucker winning the A.I. Arena. They felt that because I was missing home, I wasn’t as big of a threat as whoever else was going to end up being on the block with me.
Did you have any time to do any campaigning against Quinn?
I didn’t really do any campaigning against Quinn. We didn’t have much time. I was absolutely shocked that American chose Quinn to go up there, to be honest with you! I’m curious to see what’s been going on in the house with Quinn for them to put him up there. But I do think there could be two reasons why they put him up. Either because he’s not favoured in the house by America or that they just thought it would be great competition between Quinn, Tucker, and myself in the A.I arena.
I’m a fan of the game, but Quinn is a superfan and didn’t hide it. He told everybody that he loves this game. I would have been devastated if he went out this early because there are a few people in the house who are not really fans of the show. It surprised me that some people didn’t really know much about this game and were doing their research by watching YouTube videos which I knew nothing about!
I think it worked out for the best, but I do think that Quinn had too many different alliances going on in the house. He even sniffed out that I was a police officer, which he revealed in his Goodbye Message. It’s pretty hilarious to me because I thought I did a good job, but clearly, I didn’t! I really appreciate that about him.
You weren’t the only one who thought that Angela could be a plant. Another online theory was that the show was bringing back the ‘Twin Twist’ and that there were two Kenneys! One Kenney who wanted to stay in the game, and another Kenney who wanted to go home to his family.
Oh, that’s hilarious. There were definitely not two Kenneys! That’s for sure.
I was curious if there were rumours about me being a police officer in the house, but it never really came up at all. I didn’t have any super strong alliances in that house, but I was hoping that I could bond [more] with Cedric because we did have a moment, I think on Day 2, where he came up to me and said, “Hey Pops, can we solidify a Final Two? I think me and you can make a good team.” And I’m like, “Yeah!” So, we kind of had a thing but it wasn’t super strong.
Angela won HOH. Any prediction on how this week will go?
I hope it doesn’t go like Week 1… But maybe the fans want it to go like Week 1!
But I hope it doesn’t because she is generally a good person. She was my biggest advocate in the house. We did have conversations about Brooklyn, and I think she might go for Brooklyn, but there’s also Quinn’s power – so he might hijack that!
I think that putting up three people on the block is a tough task and Quinn’s going to use his power, it’ll make a lot of people angry, and then if he has to put up a fourth, I don’t know who he would put up.
Big Brother airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET, and Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Global and CBS. Canadians can also stream episodes at GlobalTV.com and the Global TV app.
