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.

An individual’s Big Brother game can be compared to making an app. It serves to fill a basic function (in this case, become $500,000 richer) while simultaneously dealing with the different personality types and agendas of the various users that interact with it. If there was one person who was adept at app work, it was Faysal Shafaat, with the substitute teacher even receiving the first “Crap App” of the summer. And though this didn’t detract from him attempting to go ham on the game, the Fessy app became susceptible to the hackers that were the other houseguests (quite literally, in a couple of cases). As a result, his game promptly crashed, leading to a series of events that led to him leaving the house sitting next to his showmance Haleigh Broucher, and losing his chance to immediately re-enter to his previous target and ally Scottie Salton.

More than two months ago, the former football star started the game in good field position. His quick bonds with Haleigh, Chris “Swaggy C” Williams, Angie “Rockstar” Lantry, and Kaitlyn Herman kept them centered around the “FOUTTE” mantra, serving as the very first alliance of the game. But the cracks began to show quickly in the crystal of their coalition. Fessy was growing closer to both Kaitlyn and Haleigh, and the former’s observing of his relationship with the latter transitioned her to a new partner in the game: Head of Household Tyler Crispin. And as he became more drawn into Haleigh, he began to lose sight of what was truly going on in the house. Kaitlyn flipped in the first eviction and backdoored Fessy’s closest ally Swaggy in the second, still trying to maintain their dynamic while doing so. Simultaneously, he was reaching out–or in this case, reaching down–to form a close bond with JC Monduix, who mocked him as a puppet behind his back (assumingly between the heaping portions of hot dogs he provided houseguests to fatten them up).

By Week 4, frustration festered in Fessy. He began to occupy himself with finding a flipper, which caused tension between him and Kaitlyn. After Sam Bledsoe nominated both Haleigh and Kaitlyn, Fessy found himself promising both of them he would remove them from the block. It was a situation where any ordinary person would actively avoid winning the Veto. But in this case, perhaps caused by one too many bonks to the head, he earned his second Veto of the season. With both nominees and allies coming to him with an expectation, Fessy floundered, aggravating an already-emotional Kaitlyn with his waffling (not to mention him accidentally calling her the wrong name). Even when he used the Veto on Haleigh, leading to Kaitlyn’s eviction, “FOUTTE” continued to fracture. His effort to keep Bayleigh Dayton from nominating JC came across as out of bounds, as well as getting chastised for his block-avoiding braggadocio. While all of this was happening, he perceived Haleigh swing further away from him, especially after a 5-hour hammock session with Brett Robinson. Fessy’s jealousy (or “Jealessy,” as it were) was getting to him, and it didn’t help that his allies were falling around him. By Day 58, he was waiting for something to break his way, besides the HoH sink.

Fessy’s apparent reprieve came in the next HoH competition, as his flow and long strides across a slippery path led to him glowing as brightly as the neon around him, key of power around his neck. Now officially in control, he wanted to use the opportunity to get to the bottom of who has been flipping finally. Trusting in his advisors Haleigh and JC, coupled with a passable acting job from Brett, King Fessy I made his first royal decree: Scottie must go. Despite the shipping manager being in his and Haleigh’s corner for some time, Fessy was convinced that Scottie had not only broke from him several times but was also fostering feelings for Haleigh. So he put an incredulous Scottie and Brett up together, hoping to send a duck walking out of the house. While this was happening, he went in private to Tyler and his bedmate Angela Rummans to propose an alliance of the best competitors in the house. Fessy spent his entire week as HoH seeking to find a light of knowledge, only to be pushed further in the darkness when he was convinced to not only nominate his ally but keep the solid “Level 4” alliance intact. When Angela won her second HoH of the season, Fessy thought her spot was as sweet as the candy hat he wore, confident that while Haleigh may be nominated as a pawn, the target was definitively Sam. He was utterly shocked, for the umpteenth time, to find his picture up on the nomination wall, realizing he had been duped yet again and the final four deal was broken. With a break as hard to catch as a ball flying out of Globba the Gutt, Fessy and Haleigh’s relationship began to change as eviction night approached. They initially laughed at the lousy gameplay on their part of the past few weeks, but those smiles quickly turned to frowns when Haleigh started spending her time with the rest of the house. Fessy, unsure as to whether their coupledom would continue outside of the house, criticized her social choices, prompting her to grow angry at his attempts to monopolize her. Things seem relatively patched up on eviction night, with Fessy giving a speech that threw Angela under the bus to Sam, Brett, and Tyler on his way out the door. He might have had a chance to give a postscript to those final words, though, when host Julie Chen informed him he would be the last person participating in a Jury Battleback. The tense competition ended in an ironic sense. Though Fessy had dropped the ball strategically speaking a few times this season, he was unable to drop the balls he needed to get himself back in the house. That cleared the path for Scottie to walk back through the doors, but not before Fessy issued an immediate apology to him, now having seen the error of his ways.

Now officially out of the house and joining the jury, Fessy talks with us about his thinking behind nominating Scottie; his relationships with Haleigh, JC, and Kaitlyn; and what he would have done had he won the Battleback.

Your eviction speech mainly went after Angela, and you promised Haleigh that it would keep her at least three extra weeks in the house. How do you figure that would help?

Now that I’m out, she isn’t attached to anybody, so I don’t think they will come for her the next week. If I blew up Angela and made people want to turn on her, maybe they would want to go after the trio of Tyler, Angela, and Kaycee. Then maybe the next week they could go after a physical competitor such as Brett.

You squabbled with Haleigh in your final week in the house together, miffed that she was spending time with the others in the house. How do you feel about her now that you’re out of the house?

I mean me and Haleigh were butting heads a little; we did that a lot this game. I was telling her this week that since we are on the block together, this is our last week together. She was saying that since one of us is going to stay, we need to make friends. I agree, but it was hard since one of us was leaving as well. I just wanted to be with Haleigh this week. I wasn’t really worried about next week. I was thinking about this week.

What was going through your head the week you were HoH that led you to target Scottie?

The previous week when Haleigh was HOH she has told me that Scottie told her that Bayleigh and I approached Scottie about a top three. That never happened, so I thought that Scottie told Haleigh that to pin her against me. I thought Scottie was trying to do some shady things. Then JC was in my ear saying the Scottie was the one flipping the votes and he was getting close to Haleigh. He was jealous of me spending time with her so he would be gunning for me. Scottie was really sketching me out at that time.

During the week you were HoH, you make a four-way alliance with Haleigh, Angela, and Tyler. What about them were so appealing as allies, and did you intend to take them to the Final Four if they kept their promise?

I think because I was going to take a shot at Scottie I knew I needed to help out Haleigh’s situation in some way… If I wasn’t going to take a shot at them, I knew I needed to squash the beef between them as Haleigh. I thought by me keeping my word and being true to what I said that they would honor it. Another thing is that they both are pretty good physical competitors. I gave them the pitch that Haleigh and I are too so we should all go to the end and fight it out. That way the floaters who are still in the game can’t just coast to the end.

Talk to me about your relationship with JC. What made you trust him so inherently?

Honestly, I love JC. But as the game went on, I started to realize his gameplay. It was getting annoying. I think I trusted him a little too much, but he was a very convincing person, and he would tell me how he was voting with every vote, so I felt he was honest. If he were really working with me, he would have voted with me every time, but he didn’t. Honestly, I don’t know why I trusted him so much.

Your dynamic with Kaitlyn had a lot of ups and downs, ending in you choosing to remove Haleigh from the block over her, after promising her you would. What are your thoughts on her and how you worked together?

From the very beginning, I hit it off with Kaitlyn as far as a friendship. We were really good friends, and we made a pact to ride to the end together. [Then] she put up Swaggy; that was a red flag. Then she became super close with Tyler, who wasn’t in our alliance. She was doing way too much. [Then] she was on the block with Haleigh. I had a crush on Haleigh who hadn’t done all that stuff. Kaitlyn used to always put me on the spot, and I would tell her what she wanted to hear at that point because I felt bad.

You were consistently frustrated about being left in the dark so many times. Why do you feel it was so difficult for you to sniff out what would happen come eviction night?

I would tell people which way I was voting every week because we should communicate with our alliance. Every week someone would use that info to try and use it to flip a vote to gain leverage on the other side of the house. It was just pissing me off. I was frustrated that we had a plan all week and that the people I was working with and trusting didn’t go with the plan. I think that is what led me to put up Scottie because I felt that he was the one doing that.

Two of your closest relationships in the house were with Swaggy and Bayleigh. Why did you gravitate towards them, and would you have been loyal to them to the end had they stayed?

I hit it off with Swaggy because he was an ex-college basketball player and I was an ex-college football player. I knew what kind of mindset athletes have so we could beast mode it together. I knew with Bayleigh we came from different parts of the country, but we are very similar. I just felt very comfortable with them and know we will be friends outside of the house.

In your exit interview with Julie, you said that if you returned to the house, you weren’t sure exactly what you would change. Now that you have some time to think about it, what would have been your game plan if you won the Battleback?

I would have for sure tried to win the next HoH and put up Angela and Tyler. That way one of them would have gone home.

What hopes or expectations do you have for Scottie now that he is going back into the house?

I actually had a good talk with Scottie in the brief seconds we had in the Battleback. I apologized, and I told him what he needed to do. He knows. I think he will go after Angela or Tyler. He has the same agenda that I have as far as getting rid of Angela.