(Courtesy of CBS)

Celebrity Big Brother has hit the scene! After every eviction, Parade’s Mike Bloom interviews the latest celebrity to leave the Big Brother house.

Loose lips sink ships. In an environment like the Big Brother house, there’s nothing to do but talk to one another, which leads offhand comments to transform into reasons for nomination. Reality star Brandi Glanville would be the first to tell you that, cosmetically speaking, her lips are not loose whatsoever. But she led her time through the house with her mouth, which worked in some cases, like getting Shannon Elizabeth’s closest allies to turn against her, and not in others, such as the series of events that gave her the title of the fifth celebrity evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house.

Brandi entered the house as a last minute replacement, but she had the most Big Brother experience out of the entire house, having played the last summer in the UK’s popular version of the show. She knew as well as anyone that first impressions are key, but her first conversation with James Maslow seemed to put a lock on their relationship. She felt he was overly cocky about himself, while he found her rude for talking down his musical exploits. But Brandi did make a good impression with the other women of the house that put her in the first alliance of the season and was delighted to find out they were targeting James due to his prowess in the first Head of Household competition. Though their faction held all the power after Shannon won the Veto, the group was already starting to “ravel” when Omarosa Manigault and HoH Keshia Knight Pulliam came up with a gambit to replace nominee Chuck Liddell with Mark McGrath. Their insistence got the wheels in Shannon’s superfan head turning, and she brought together the rest of the alliance to blindside the other two and evict Chuck. Little did the poker player know, though, that she had not completely excavated the seeds of dissent. When Ross Mathews was the next to win the HoH crown, the plan seemed set to target now-outsiders Keshia and Omarosa. But Brandi and her partner in crime Ariadna Gutierrez had a different idea in mind, planting the idea in Ross and Marissa Jaret Winokur’s heads that Shannon was too powerful to keep in the game, underlining her growing closeness to James. The stage was set for Shannon’s demise, but the blindside opening was put on hold when Keshia asked to be voted out of the game. Ariadna clinched the next HoH victory, and everything seemed par for the course with Brandi in power for the third round in a row. They formed a quartet with Ross and Marissa and were finally able to successfully hit their mark, sending their former ally out the front door.

In her interview with host Julie Chen, Brandi said she was softer than the front she may initially put up. A moment of that softness put Brandi in hot water for the first time this season. Before Shannon had left, she became distraught over getting evicted, and Brandi decided to not vote for her out of sympathy. However, she had not run this idea by her alliance, who got mad at her appearing to undermine their united front. When Omarosa held on at the BB basketball court long enough to win the next Head of Household competition, she began holding court to see who would go up. When she heard about Brandi’s rogue vote, she thought that would be a perfect rationale to try to split up the foursome, and put her up alongside Ross. She then continued to stir the pot by throwing a wink Marissa’s way at the nomination ceremony, getting Brandi paranoid that they had a side deal going on. When Ross earned a clutch Veto win, it seemed like Brandi’s time in the house was up. But it proved to be the second live show of the season where plans got thrown into turmoil, as Metta World Peace elected to leave the game due to his mounting anxiety and homesickness. With a second lease on life, Brandi hoped she could make the best of it and get back into power, and she got the closest she ever did to winning a competition when she made the finals of the “Red Carpet Ride.” But it ended up being James who did her in, as he was first to get across the shaky carpet, but purposely threw it to his close ally Mark. With the singers fearing a women’s alliance re-emerging, they attempted to break up the pair of Ariadna and Brandi by putting them up together. The two went into action during the Veto competition, but it ended up being Ariadna who earned the golden power as a vital accessory. Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Brandi persisted in going in on James, and her continued candor began to irk some of the other houseguests, saying pi-no to the wine lover’s dare to say something bad about Julie on the live show. Mark put Marissa up in Ariadna’s place as a pawn, and though Brandi’s recently-saved ally cast a vote to save her, everyone else chose to squash her dreams of the $250,000 prize (though ironically enough, Brandi ended up gifting her squash to Omarosa before leaving).

Now out of the house, Brandi talks with me about why she felt she wasn’t very strategic overall, how her and Ariadna worked so well as a team, and why she ultimately gave her gourd away.

When you left the house, you said that you wished James had been able to see the goodbye message you left him. Can you give me one line for a goodbye message now, considering that he left the house right after you?

(Laughs.) “James, we wear the same size jeans.”

Something else you mentioned to Julie is that you learned that you were “not very strategic.” I don’t know if I’d necessarily agree, considering that you were in power for quite some time and helped plan the Shannon blindside. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?

I didn’t know the show going in very well, but I pick up things very quickly. I maybe trust too much. I had one alliance, and I stuck with it. I think that, had I been more strategic, I would have reached out to other people and not just trusted the people that I did.

Let’s talk about that alliance. What prompted you to feel you needed to start targeting Shannon once Ross won HoH, considering how early that was in the game?

It’s a shorter show; there are only thirteen episodes. James and Shannon couldn’t even help [it], but they were just eager. You could tell they were great at the game, they knew the game, and they were better than all of us. James is 27 and very physically fit. There was nobody that could beat him physically. With Shannon, there was nobody that could beat her at the game because she knew everything. She would call out the competitions before we even were doing them. We were like, “How do you know this?!” She just [watched] the show for so long. So we knew ultimately that they had to go. (Laughs.) Listen, I might not do all the research [about] the game, but at the end of the day, in that situation, I know what to do.

Does that decision making come from the other reality shows that you’ve done?

Unfortunately, I’ve been burned a lot. So I have my guard up. [I became famous through] the Housewives, and I wasn’t famous before. You have a lot of people in your life that want something from you, and you have to navigate the good and bad of people. And I got hurt a lot, so I have my guard up. In this situation, there’s a quarter of a million dollars at the end. I wasn’t there to make friends; I was there to win the money. It’s really lovely that I did make friends. (Laughs.) That’s my problem because I like people and I trust people. But I’ve been burned enough to know what t do.

Liking people seemed to be the reason behind why you cast that rogue vote to keep Shannon back when she was evicted. Was that a spur-of-the-moment decision?

Yes, it was 1000% at the moment. I didn’t think of the game. She’s lovely; she’s so sweet. And she was so invested in the game that I was like, “I know everyone’s going to vote for her.” It was dumb; it gave everyone a reason not to be my friend and not be part of the alliance. But I don’t regret it.

Ariadna was your partner in crime throughout the competition. What do you think it was that made your bond so tight?

I’m a girl’s girl. I love makeup; I love fashion. I have thirteen best girl friends. I understood her. She took the place of my best friends in real life and my children in real life. (Laughs.) It was like I got to have this beautiful little girl and she kept me from going insane.

When it comes to strategy, would you say one of you was more dominant than the other, or did you share power equally?

She and I shared control in the game. She’s so smart, and the good thing about her is that she doesn’t talk, she’ll just listen. She listens before she speaks. We’re exact opposites in how we do things that it works together.

Almost like a yin and yang. You cover for each other’s weaknesses.

Yeah! So she sits and listens, and I act out and react. Then we come together. And by me acting out, I push people’s buttons to see what kind of information I can get. It’s not that difficult. (Laughs.) She just sits back and reacts. It definitely worked to both of our advantages.

Now that being said, would you want to go to the final two with her?

No! I told her in the beginning, “I love you, but there’s going to be a point when if we get further in this game, we’re not going to be able to do this.” And she agreed; she was like, “We’ll have a conversation when it happens, and we’ll try our hardest .” You don’t want to be sitting next to perfection at the end of it if you’re going to win five out of nine votes.

Was there someone from the group you left that you would have rather sat next to then?

I thought Mark or Omarosa. The only person I’d win sitting next to is a bad guy because I’d already pissed enough people off. I didn’t understand why Mark was keeping three people who he would definitely lose to; it didn’t make sense to me. I would keep the villains and, in the end, pray. (Laughs.)

You mentioned before how you would act out, and you were definitely known for being vocal in the house. Was your mouth ultimately your greatest strength or weakness?

Both. My mom has always said, “The best thing about you is your mouth, and the worst thing about you is your mouth.” All of my friends know this, I just can’t keep it in at this point. I wish I could; it doesn’t always help me, but sometimes it does. That said, I would speak out, be nutty, and say things to get reactions, then Ari would take in the reactions. Then we would sit and confer.

Let’s talk about your relationships with some of the other houseguests. There were a couple of times in the past week where you became paranoid of Marissa, between Omarosa’s wink to her at the nomination ceremony or her talking to James and Mark after you lashed out at them. Did she make you feel particularly suspicious?

I absolutely adore Marissa. I don’t know [if] you see it, but she just can’t help herself. She talks to everyone; she wants to be best friends with everyone. But she also wants to make sure that everyone isn’t talking with somebody. It’s too much. I know what she says to me, so if [she’s saying] this to me, what is she saying to everyone else? But the house breeds paranoia.

It’s safe to say James was the person you liked least in the house, talking specifically about his cocksure energy. Do you feel that grew as the season progressed or was it just a matter of getting a bad first impression and that maintained as he continued to stay in the house?

He’s an asshole, that’s the truth. That’s just what it is. He is super condescending when he speaks. He’s like, “Oh yeah, look at my merch. I have all this merch.” Everyone in the house was very lovely, to be honest. For the most part, everyone was down to earth, likable, relatable. He was the only one who acted [like he was] famous, and I’m like, “Get over yourself, dude.” He would say, “This is gross. I’m gonna get this and this and this.” And I’m sitting there thinking, “Where do you think you are? You’re on Big Brother. We might not even get food for three days, and yet you’re sitting there going, ‘Don’t worry, I got this’?” He just [has] a child star mentality that’s just exhausting. Though he kept talking about, “I’m gonna get this, I’m gonna get that,” they never catered to him, and I think that made him more obnoxious. I know what having kids is like, and my kids are lovely, conscientious, and amazing. I just don’t want them to be like him.

I want to move on to Omarosa. You definitely had an up and down relationship with her, at one point talking about how you got to wear her shoes. Last night, you talked about how you hoped people would get to see the softer side of her. Can you elaborate on that?

I was very worried about Ari when I was leaving. I knew I was going, [even though] I tried my hardest to stay. But I knew Ari believed in our final four, as did I. She was very sad. Her dad is going through cancer, [so] she’s very emotional, and she needs a go-to person. She was hurt the way the final four with Ross and Marissa turned out. I went to Omarosa, because she was in the room with us, and I said, “Listen, I don’t trust anyone here. I want to make sure that when I go, Ari has a person.” Not that Ari needed one, but I just felt responsible in a lot of ways for her, as she did for me. She definitely stepped up and took care [of her]. I said, “If one of you win this, you promise to keep [the other].” She was really great with Ari, and that’s all I cared about. I was kind of shocked in the end that she came through and kept her word. It made me very happy.

Perhaps that was the reason that you gave the personified squash to her on your way out, which made you feel less lonely for all those days in the house. Why did you give him away before leaving?

(Laughs.) He would never have survived the outside world. It’s a rough world; sunlight’s not good for him. She talked about Pastor John constantly. I don’t know if you saw it, but we couldn’t have any men in a [bedroom] the whole time. So I said, “Listen, he’s gonna look after you until you see Pastor John on Sunday.” It was just kind of “here’s my love, and now you have to look after Ari.”