Kamu Kirk had set himself up well in the Big Brother 28 house. He was in multiple alliances, won a few competitions, and had managed to stay off the block until week six.
The MMA fighter from Phoenix, Arizona, was blindsided by his alliance in week five after they decided to flip the vote and evict Lyric Medeiros instead of Melody Morris. After that, the majority alliance had crumbled, and sides were established.
Kamu had thought he was safe the following week when his ally, Yash Patel, won HOH. The nominees were set, especially after Yash won the POV, and he hadn’t changed them, aiming for Survivor‘s Dee Valladares to be evicted.
However, the other Survivor alum Rick Devens shocked the house when he pulled out the Diamond Power of Veto, which he won in the Timecapsule. Devens saved his ally Dee from the block, and renominated Kamu, breaking his streak of never being on the block.
On eviction night, Angela Murray won the Blockbuster over Kamu and Haley Thogmartin. Kamu was evicted in an eight-to-one vote over Haley.
Here’s what he had to say about his time in the house, flipping on his allies, Devens’ power, and being beaten out by two women in their 50s.
CBS
How are you?
Kamu Kirk: I’m doing alright. Thanks.
You were evicted eight-to-one with only LaTrice voting to keep you. Did any of those votes shock you?
I was a little bit surprised, but I wasn’t totally shocked. I knew that there was a good chance that with me being on the block, the people in the house looked at me as a big threat. I couldn’t have been too shocked if they took their shot while I was up there, right? But I was a little bit surprised that people like Melody and Mallory [Aurichio], who I knew really did not want to keep Haley — at least it seemed like they didn’t want to keep Haley in the house — voted to keep her in the house and voted to evict me. But at the same time, I understand the game move. I respect it. They saw me as a big threat. They had their shot. They took it.
Did you have any inkling at all that Devens had power?
None. None. I mean, I suspected it because I knew that the other two icons had power, right? So Dee, she obviously had the BB bribe that she told me about, and then Angela had that punishment, so we know that she played for the power. So, I definitely suspected that Devens had a power, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure. Obviously, I didn’t know with certainty, but I definitely didn’t expect the power to be that powerful, obviously. I didn’t even know that that power existed. I guess that power, the diamond power veto, came from a season that was before I started watching. So I didn’t even know that power existed. So yeah, definitely caught me off guard.
Do you think that he made the right move using it on Dee, or do you think you should have saved it for him later down the line?
Well, he had mentioned — who knows how true this is — that the power was going to expire at some point, and so I don’t know when the expiration date was on that power. But I think that it did make sense for him to use it when he did, because I think that Dee is his number one. They’re the only two Survivors in the house, and so there’s a good chance that had he not used that power, Dee would have gone home. So I think he made the right move, and he took out a big threat in the house. And honestly, I respect the gameplay. I’m really bummed to be on the receiving end of it. I wish I was still in the house playing, of course, but I respect the gameplay.
You and Devens were in a few alliances together. Why do you think he chose to renom you?
Yeah, Devens and I, if my math is correct, we’re in five alliances together. But keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He was close with me the entire time, and on a personal level, I know that we’re going to be friends. I think he told Yash at one point, he said, “Man, you and Kamu are the two people that I hang out with the most. You know that I enjoy spending the most of my time with you.” I believe him when he said that. We did spend a lot of time with each other, but you have to separate personal feelings from the game. He’s playing to win, and it was a matter of time before he turned on me or I turned on him because there can only be one winner, and so he had the power. He took the shot, and the shot landed, and here I am. So respect to him. As I said, it was a game move, and it was a great move.
Going back to last week when you won the power of veto, you had two of your biggest allies on the block. Why did you ultimately choose not to save one of them?
Well, because I had to go with the information that I had. So after the Lyric eviction, there were so many people who were lying in the house. I didn’t know exactly who I could trust, other than Yash and Taylor [Brown]. I trusted them, but I thought that Chuk [Anyanwu] and Haley were both lying to me, and then Chuk started to throw my name under the bus. So when that happened, I had to go have a conversation with Lala, who told me that I was going up on the block, and I had to say, “No, they’re bigger fish to fry, like Chuk,” who’s throwing your name out, and I had to do what I had to do to get them, really to get Chuk up on the block, and then Haley kind of just became a victim of the situation and got thrown up there next to him. I didn’t know at the time that they were telling the truth to me. So I had to go with the information that I had, and I had to do my best.
Ultimately, Lala, who kept me safe, wanted to keep noms the same, so I wanted to respect her wishes. If I would have used the veto, then I would have burned that bridge with Lala, and there’s a good chance I would have burned that bridge with Yash and Taylor as well. So it was a tricky situation to be in, but like I said, when you’re inside the house, you don’t know everything that’s going on, so you’ve got to do the best with the info that’s available to you.
Talking about the Lyric blind side, what was it like in the house? What was your reaction to that whole thing?
I thought that was a lot of fun. I’m a fan of the show. I’ve been watching the show since Season 14. I love the chaos. I love the scrambling. I really was hoping that I’d be around for double evictions because I always think that they are so much fun to watch, and I think it would have been so much fun to play in. So it was interesting for me. I’m like, “OK, this is the first time I feel like I’m being lied to.” So it presents a whole new challenge and a whole new opportunity for me to try to make moves, for me to pivot, for me to try to get to the bottom of these lies. And I really enjoyed it, honestly. It was a lot of fun, and it was even fun being told that I was going up on the block, and then taking that as a challenge too, and being like, “OK, well, it’s time to go to work. What can I do to flip this situation for me?” I went from being told I was going on the block to essentially running Lala’s HOH, and then winning the Power of Veto. So, it was a fun week. It was a chaotic week, but it was a fun week.
Did you ever find out who the other two votes actually were to keep Melody, too?
Yes, yes. So Yash, I knew right off the bat that Yash voted with me, and then the other one was Chuk. Chuk also voted with me as well. So, Angela and Dee were the two liars, and then Haley, who I thought was in on it, was as blindsided about the whole thing as I was. I just didn’t know it at the time.
You managed to avoid the block until this week. How do you think you achieved that?
I think it was my relationships with people in the house. I genuinely had really good friendships with everybody in the house, and I think it was because of those friendships that people trusted me, and because they trusted me, they didn’t see me as an enemy. Therefore, they didn’t see me as somebody to take out right away, but for all those same reasons why that protected me in the beginning, those exact same reasons were why they ended up voting me out once Devens took that shot, so I was doing all right. I was sitting pretty, in a good position in the house, even up until that point, like with Yash’s HOH, there’s a good chance we would have taken Dee out.
The whole thing is bad for the rookies — well, specifically my boy Yash, and then Taylor, Lala, and Haley, who I think three, if not four of them, will probably see the block this week, unfortunately. But that’s why I think they took their shot. I think it was my social game as well as my physical competitiveness. Me being a physical threat that took me out.
You are an MMA fighter. How did it feel to be beaten out by two women in their 50s in two competitions?
Hey, but it’s not just any woman. OK, they’re not just the average two women in their 50s. We’re talking about an icon, we’re talking about Angela Murray, and then we’re talking about Lala, who’s a monster in her own right. Look at her? Can you believe that she’s 58 years old? She’s a machine. Throughout the entire season, she had been talking about endurance comp. “I can’t wait for an endurance comp. I can’t wait for an endurance comp” because she knew that that’s where she would shine. So, did I expect to beat her? Yeah, I expected to win the wall comp. Mentally going into it, I was like, “I got this. This is my competition.”
But you can’t count anybody out. I even told Angela before the Blockbuster the night before… Because she was counting herself out, I said, “Don’t do that. You’re a monster. You’re a monster, and it wouldn’t be the first time that I lost a woman in her 50s,” and she laughed, and she went out there, and she did her thing. So congrats to both of them.
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