Big Brother’s house is open once more! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will be bringing you interviews with houseguests as they get evicted from the game.

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. The game of Big Brother puts this principle into practice many times. There’s pride that usually comes with winning Head of Household and the Power of Veto (the former of which is so recurring, fans have given it the term “HoHitis.” This season has provided further opportunities with the Power Apps and, most recently, the Hacker twist. Bayleigh Dayton spent her first few weeks in the house working her way up from the bottom, especially once her close ally and bed buddy Chris “Swaggy C” Williams got backdoored. After she received a Power App, her standing began to rise, and with it her confidence. But as it was a twist that brought her up in the air, it also brought her back down to Earth, as the combination of the threat of her power and suspicions of her being the Hacker grounded the flight attendant’s game.

Bayleigh walked into the Big Brother house with the patience of a flight attendant and the poise and grace of a pageant queen. Perhaps those tenets gave her the drive to approach Swaggy on the first night and warn him against alienating himself with his behavior, a spark that was soon to kindle the flames of romance. She nearly had the title of first HoH in her grasp when her and Tyler Crispen worked together to delete the others from the competition, but the lifeguard edged her out. That would begin a series of ups and downs between the two, especially after Tyler had ruminated on the idea of backdooring Bayleigh to send a message to Swaggy. Though she stayed off the block, she and Swaggy began to drift closer to one another, despite their own protestations. Unfortunately, her involvement with him made her a plus one in the “FOUTTE” alliance, meaning she was not let in on the myriad blindsides that the opposing “Level 6” alliance pulled off in the first several weeks. But though Bayleigh felt powerless, America gave her power in the form of “Identity Theft,” a twist that allowed her to steal the identity of the HoH and change nominations to what she prefers. With the power in her hands, she decided she had enough of being the last to know of any plans, and the timing was right for her to win the timing-based HoH competition. Little did she know what would happen once she ascended that spiral staircase to coronate herself “Queen Bay” officially.

Her first royal decree involved demanding allegiance and loyalty from both her allies and her enemies. She admonished Faysal Shafaat for his insistence on trying to protect JC Monduix, and made Scottie Salton swear up and down the river he was dedicated to her cause. She eventually settled on Brett Robinson and Rachel Swindler. The latter was simply a pawn, and to comfort an inconsolable Rachel, she disclosed the secret of her Power App to her. The Vegas entertainer took it as no sign of comfort, though, and when Bayleigh did not seem to entertain the idea of taking her off the block, she told Angela Rummans about the power as well, and the secret soon spread like the intergalactic reach of “Space Pecs.” When Veto winner Tyler followed her instructions and left the two nominees intact, Bayleigh was confident, feeling she was able to get her way essentially by herself. But the power lies with the people in Big Brother, and Level 6 decided Rachel was more of a gamble to keep in, blindsiding one of their first allies and half of the house. And to add on top of the surprises, Brett used his eviction speech to out Bayleigh’s power, sending into a furious tailspin.

Angela cleared the bar to win the next HoH competition. Her allies decided to nominate Bayleigh to remove her power from the house. But that involved some trickery in making sure she didn’t use the power in the first place, and so Angela promised Bayleigh safety, while Bayleigh was primarily focused on taking out her anger on being left out of the loop once more on Angie “Rockstar” Lantry. Taking her word for gold (and also fearful the Hacker twist could change up her nominations), she elected not to use the power. Rockstar and Scottie hit the nomination chairs, but it wasn’t long before they had their first chance to change with the Hacker competition. Haleigh Broucher received the power anonymously, and tried to make a shot that counted by putting Tyler up. Now vulnerable for the first time all game, Tyler’s paranoia painted Bayleigh as the Hacker, figuring she was mad at him for his betrayal the week prior. As such, it only added fuel to the fire that was growing around Bayleigh. When Angela won the Veto, she removed Tyler and shocked Bayleigh by nominating her, accusing her of being the Hacker and planting lies in conversations all week. Now it was Bayleigh’s turn to be inconsolable, as she vented to Haleigh about being falsely accused. With pangs of guilt biting at her like “anal lice,” Haleigh decided to hold a house meeting where she outed herself as the Hacker to get the target off of Bayleigh. But the meeting ended with the exact opposite of intentions, as mention of a misunderstanding between a “backdoor Angela” plan from last week led to a confrontation between Bayleigh and Tyler. As she screamed literal bloody murder about his lying, the house decided she was too erratic to keep in, nearly unanimously evicting her.

Now on her way to the jury house, Bayleigh talks with Parade about how much she feels the Hacker twist contributed to her getting evicted, her feelings on Tyler and Angela, and why she was so hesitant to trust the other members of “FOUTTE.”

How much did the idea of the Hacker affect your gameplay this week, between deciding not to use your power and getting blamed for being the Hacker?

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10! The Hacker threw a wrench into everything I planned this week. It was destroyed by the fact that no one knew the Hacker’s identity until it was too late.

Speaking of your power, why did you elect to tell Rachel about it? Did you expect it to blow up the way it did?

No. I didn’t. Telling Rachel about my power was simply just an attempt to calm her nerves and keep her quiet. It obviously had the opposite effect, so that was bad gameplay on my part.

You have had an up and down relationship with Tyler throughout the game, beginning with him taking the first HoH from you and ending with a screaming match during Haleigh’s house meeting. How do you feel about him overall?

I feel like Tyler is untrustworthy and just kind of lost, but I feel like he is a good guy. He is just young and dumb.

What about Angela? You two seemed close when you were HoH, but she backdoored you and gave you a fairly negative treatment after.

I feel like Angela is friends with someone when it benefits her, but she doesn’t really know how to be a friend to someone [generally]. The karma will come back to bite her, and I hope she realizes that she just lost a genuine friend.

We’ve seen you form close bonds in the past with people like Angela and Tyler, while at the same time you vocalized how wary you were of someone like Rockstar. What made you inherently distrusting in your alliance?

It is so funny because my alliance were people who were kind of hesitant to accept me in the beginning. Rockstar always voiced her support for me which made me nervous because I thought it was making me a bigger target. Now that I know her, I genuinely love her and know that she is just loud.

In retrospect, how do you feel about your HoH reign? In doing things like making Scottie swear on the Bible, asking JC to declare loyalty, and confronting Fessy about him taking credit for nominations, do you feel you may have been too forceful in going for the outcome you desired?

No. I have no regrets. I am who I am, and I don’t like being lied to, just like they don’t, so I will take whatever tactics necessary.

Your game took a big hit after the second week when Swaggy was evicted. How did you change your game to avoid leaving right after him?

I had to start socializing and socializing quickly. I centered my entire gameplay on him being there. It was him and I against everyone so after he left I needed some allies and had to get to work.

You spoke at one point about growing up as a black girl in an all-white community and the struggles that came with that. Did that notion of being an outsider make its way into the house with the way you interacted with others?

Definitely. That feeling of being an outsider is something that never goes away. As a black woman, I take that interaction into everything in life because it is something I take with me every single day. I wish I could turn it off, but it is something that doesn’t really have an off switch.