What To Know
- Big Brother will celebrate its 1,000th episode with returning familiar faces, iconic moments, and a major twist that producers promise has never happened before.
- The show’s milestone episode will also highlight historic gameplay.
- Host Julie Chen Moonves shares her six favorite wild moments from past seasons.
As the first primetime entertainment series in American TV history to ever reach the 1,000-episode milestone, of course Big Brother is going even bigger to mark the occasion! While all of the details are still in the works, executive producers Allison Grodner, Rich Meehan, and Chris Roach did tease that “familiar faces and iconic moments from the past” will pop up. In addition, the 1,000th episode will feature one of biggest shocks of the summer. “[Something] that has never happened before,” they promise. “There will definitely be surprises and a twist that no one sees coming.”
As for whether host Julie Chen Moonves will be in any of the action — she’s been lobbying for a shot at the Wall endurance challenge in honor of the milestone — the bosses are on board. “If Julie wants to try the Wall comp for 1,000 seconds, we are happy to make that happen!”
So, who knows, maybe one day Chen Moonves will be among the show’s best moments. Until then, she has her own batch of favorites from the past 999 episodes, which she shared with us ahead of the big day.
Diana King/CBS
1. Amy’s Deception (Season 3)
The first season to feature the Power of Veto also featured a lesson in watching your back.
“Amy [Crews] fooling house-mate Marcellas Reynolds into thinking he was safe so he didn’t use his new power” was a shocker, recalls Chen Moonves. “Moments later on live TV he was blindsided and evicted. It was inconceivable!”
2. Project DNA (Season 5)
Identical twins Adria and Natalie Montgomery “played as one person half the summer…successfully fooling their housemates by switching off every three days while in the diary room,” says Chen Moonves. “They got to each play their own individual game for the back half of the game because no one in the house caught on or even suspected!”
3. “Anybody Want Cake?” (Season 10)
Seconds after engaging in a chaotic screaming match, squabbling house-guests April Dowling, Libra Thompson, Jessie Godderz, and Keesha Smith gathered with the rest of the roomies to begrudgingly sing “Happy Birthday” to Keesha.
“Only BB can make one of the happiest celebratory songs into a depressing, angry, and sad moment,” laughs Chen of the iconic bit. “And then cap it off with humor when Libra asked, ‘Does anyone want cake?!’ Go look at the video. It was insane.”
Johnny Vy/CBS via Getty Images)
4. Dan Gheesling’s Funeral (Season 14)
Chen Moonves praises the returning Season 10 champ for changing the game by “staging his own funeral” with a pre-eviction speech in which Dan made amends with the houseguests he’d played and severed ties with onetime ally Danielle Murphree.
“He betrayed [her] and basically flipped his loyalty to save himself,” she said. “It worked.”
5. Frankie Grande‘s Battle of the Block (Season 16)
Despite Ariana Grande‘s brother being “Public Enemy No. 1 at that moment in the house,” Chen Moonves loves how he “single-handedly won the Battle of the Block, even though his teammate Caleb abandoned him seconds before.” The victory, she says, “was both shocking and emotional.”
Francis Specker/CBS via Getty Image
6. The Cookout (Season 23)
The six-person alliance of (above, from left) Kyland Young, Hannah Chaddha, Derek Frazier, Xavier Prather (the ultimate winner), Azaz Awasum, and Tiffany Mitchell made it to the end and made history.
“Despite their differences,” marvels Chen Moonves, “they [united] for the greater good to have the first Black winner of BB.”
Big Brother, 1,000th Episode, Thursday, August 27, 8/7c, CBS
— With Brittany Sims