She walked away from Big Brother 15 with a $25,000 prize as "America's Favorite." Now Elissa Slater is heading to her favorite soap. The Concord, N.C., nutritionist and yoga instructor — and sister of Big Brother 13 champ Rachel Reilly — will join CBS's The Bold and the Beautiful Oct. 24-25 for the reality TV invasion that will also include Reilly and other Big Brother alumni, including Brendon Villegas, Jeff Schroeder and Howard Overby, plus Malcolm Freberg from Survivor. TV Guide Magazine spoke with the beautiful and bubbly Slater about her dip in the suds and found her to be — no surprise — totally beside herself!

TV Guide Magazine: How crazy is it to appear on your favorite show?

Slater: Completely crazy and completely surreal! I started watching The Bold and the Beautiful with my nana when I was six. Seriously! I was approached about doing the show on the night of the Big Brother finale on my way to the after-party. They said, 'We know you'll be up all night but, if you agree to do this, you have to be at The Bold and the Beautiful at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning." [Laughs] Are you kidding me? Hell-oooo! Of course, I'll be there! This is the opportunity of a lifetime. You can sleep when you're dead, right?

TV Guide Magazine: Let's back up. You've been watching The Bold and the Beautiful since you were six? Uh...isn't that a little, well, wrong?

Slater: Yeah, I guess no six-year-old should be watching it, but our nana would monitor the show and filter out the things that were not child-appropriate. [Laughs] Which didn't leave me and Rachel much to watch but we loved it! Now I TiVo the show and watch the episodes with my mom, Noreen. It was so hard being in the Big Brother house and missing my soap and missing that experience of togetherness with my mom. She is my best friend in the world and she was waiting for me in the makeup room at The Bold and the Beautiful — the first time I'd seen her in three months! So my day on the set was fantastic all the way around. And getting to do a little acting with my sister, Rachel, and with Kim Matula, who plays Hope Logan, was the coolest thing I've ever done...next to Big Brother, of course!

TV Guide Magazine: You'll be playing Elissa, a hostess at the Bikini Bar. Any chance you'll become a recurring player like Rachel and your bro-in-law Brendon?

Slater: I hope so because that would be epic! Rachel and I also did some scenes for two other episodes where our characters are seen shopping at the Forrester Boutique. [Airing Oct. 30-31]. It was wild catching up on all the scoop that happened while I was sequestered on Big Brother. I had no idea Hope had a whole new man in her life. Now Liam's got competition from this Wyatt guy. My God, it's crazy! [Laughs] Yet it's so The Bold and the Beautiful!

TV Guide Magazine: Why did you look so surprised on the Big Brother 15 finale when you won the "America's Favorite" cash? The nation voted you MVP three weeks in a row and would have kept voting for you if the producers hadn't put a stop to it. You must have known you had that 25 grand in the bag.

Slater: Not at all! When you're in that house you never know how America is perceiving you so, yeah, I was truly blown away. I suspected that my sister was out rallying votes for me, but still I was shocked and so happy to have all that public support. In a way I feel like I won the game anyway because I've come away with such fantastic memories. And then to appear on The Bold and the Beautiful on top of it? I mean, really, how can I complain about not going the distance on Big Brother? [Laughs] I'm too busy pinching myself!

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