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

(Courtesy of CBS)

History tends to repeat itself on Big Brother. Sometimes, the person who is the most in danger will clinch that crucial Head of Household win, as was the case with Omarosa Manigault this past week. A person who adamantly targets one of the strongest people in the game may not realize that the knives are being pulling behind their back, like Ross Mathews after he got rid of fellow superfan Shannon Elizabeth. In this case, it seems very recent history has repeated itself, as Celebrity Big Brother ended its Monday eviction episodes the way it started them: someone asking to leave the house. Metta World Peace struggled since the beginning to get his head in the game, and despite what looked like a temporary rally, the pull from outside the house was too great for him, culminating with him walking out of the house with tears of joy in his eyes after 20 days confined within its walls.

There are Big Brother superfans and casual fans, and then there’s Metta World Peace. The NBA champion chose purposely not to watch any of the show before entering the house, hopeful that his athleticism and improv skills would allow him to dominate the game. But it ended up being his home life that dominated his game, as he quickly became despondent when the game started, missing his family. Thus began nearly three weeks of Metta trying to quit the game, feeling it was already time to throw in the towel. But the houseguests had other plans; Head of Household Shannon and her alliance of women decided to target the men, but they thought Metta would be a natural person to get rid of down the line, and instead took the shot at James Maslow. With his request denied, he decided to stick with what he thought was the plan to vote out James. But he ended up being doubly blindsided; not only did Shannon rally her alliance to keep James and get rid of Chuck Liddell, but he had accidentally voted to evict Chuck, a mistake that occurred when he breezed past Julie Chen’s usual eviction night jargon. Metta now found himself on the outside looking in with Omarosa and Keshia Knight Pulliam, but new HoH Ross chose to leave his pin standing and send the other two ladies to the gutter. Though a plan has been concocting behind the scenes to put up Shannon, Keshia made her own request: vote her out of the game so she could feed her child, who was running dangerously low on milk. They decided to honor it and send her out unanimously, and perhaps it was watching this happen that gave Metta the idea to do what he did only a week later.

Despite a temporary pause on a season that has been running in fast forward as compared to a standard Big Brother season, when Ariadna Gutierrez won the next Head of Household competition, the foursome of her, Ross, Brandi Glanville, and Marissa Jaret Winokur decided to go full steam ahead on the “Evict Shannon” train. In the meantime, Metta was angered at the house acquiescing to letting Keshia go so easily. He swore revenge, claiming this “toy” has now woken up and is ready to make child’s play of the house. He served as a willing ally to the prevailing quartet, even going so far as to lie in the Head of Household room to prevent Shannon from making a pitch for him and Omarosa to go up. Perhaps this new attitude came from a new source of emotional comfort: Orwell, the aviary mascot of Big Brother After Dark and apparently a sufficient stuffed animal. The plan to evict Shannon finally went through, but not before Metta served as his own form of a stuffed animal while she was experiencing emotional breakdowns. In exchange, she tried to impart him with some wisdom as to what he needed to do to take home the trophy. Omarosa’s back was against the wall, both from a strategic perspective and in the most recent Head of Household competition. Even though Metta had home court advantage due to the competition’s location in a basketball game, he large size got the best of him and he was the first to drop, also putting him on Big Brother’ patented slop for the next two days. Omarosa then pulled off a much-needed victory and attempted to sow seeds of dissent in the foursome by putting up Ross and Brandi. Those seeds began to quickly germinate, due in part to Brandi’s sympathy vote towards Shannon that she did not clear with her alliance, as well as a stray wink Omarosa threw to Marissa at the nomination ceremony that seemed to hint at a secret deal. “Lady O” also chose to build up her royal court once more, making her own four-way deal with Metta, James, and Mark McGrath. Despite the guys on the outside now joined up with the power, Mark and James debated if dancing with a person Ariadna had called “the devil” was such a good idea, and they went to Marissa with a new Final 4 deal, only to encounter a tentative Tracy Turnblad. The season experienced its first significant shake-up in the form of the VIP Veto, a Veto voted on by the public that has the option of removing up to two people from the block. Like Ross’s nominations speech, he didn’t let his game come to a finish, winning the Veto in a nail-biting victory. He decided to move out of the nomination chairs but found no reason to use its actual VIP powers. Metta had requested once more that he go home, and with her primary target in the clear, Omarosa finally decided to honor his wishes. He walked off the BB court with tears in his eyes and nothing but his trusty Orwell under his arm, ready to take on the world and at peace with his decision.

Now out of the game, Metta talks with me about how he thinks his game was looking before he left, why he chose to build vendettas against certain houseguests, and how he would advise future players to deal with homesickness.

It’s been over twelve hours since your eviction. Now looking back, do you have any regrets about the decision you made to leave the game?

No regrets. It was frustrating, mainly because I was missing my family. The competition was really fulfilling. I’m not in the NBA [anymore], and I never thought I would have an opportunity to perform in front of millions and millions of people. It gave me such satisfaction that I needed at this point in my career. If I need to compete, I’m not going to play against Ross or Marissa in basketball. But Big Brother makes a game where it’s competitive, not just a handicap match. Mentally, physically, strategically, emotionally, it’s an even match. When you compete 100%, it’s a real competition. So I was very fulfilled, although I got a little anxiety that kept building up from wondering what my family was doing.

Let’s talk about that anxiety. You seemed to have a rallying point last week when you decided if you have to stay, you might as well play. What changed between then and now that made you change your mind back to wanting to go home?

I was trying to let the other housemates win. I wanted to shake things up a little bit. I had a vendetta against Keshia and Shannon for not letting me go before Chuck because Chuck actually wanted to play. So I said, “I don’t want blood on anybody’s hands. Just let me go.” When I put the bag down and started playing, when I caused some havoc, I started to see there were some teams. I saw James and Shannon were on a team, and Shannon seemed like she had everybody under wraps. So I attacked Shannon from different angles, and I got her on my side. Then I was able to build allies and had five people. But now Shannon was on the block, and Shannon and I get close. James and Mark seemed pretty cool, but they didn’t have the numbers that they needed. I had Omarosa, Brandi, Ariadna, and Marissa and Ross a little bit. So then I was in a really good position. If they didn’t send me home, I was going to cause a lot of havoc and a lot of doubt in people’s minds.

What made you want to decide to leave at that moment? You only had six days left, but was there a breaking point? Take me inside the mind of Metta World Peace.

I could have stayed. The thing was, I wasn’t sleeping. I was up at 6:00 AM, 7:00 AM, and it was getting to a point where I wasn’t prepared for this. For the mind [games]. Also, I didn’t have as much anxiety as I had the first week so that I could have made it. I told them, “If y’all want to keep playing with me, and keep using me as a pawn, I’m gonna continue to break up your teams, I’m gonna vote against you, and I’m gonna win the money.” I said, “I don’t mind going home right now, but if y’all want to play with me, I’m not gonna give you a chance.” So they pretty much had no choice. I feel like I played a pretty good game, and I gained control in being sent out of the house.

Speaking towards that game, you were adamant going into the house that you weren’t going to watch any Big Brother seasons. What was the strategy behind that?

You can’t prepare for something that you can’t prepare for. So I would have to prepare for something where you don’t know who the personalities are, you don’t know what games are going to be played, and you don’t know who’s going to snitch and who’s going to break under interrogation. And all that happens. I didn’t align with anybody. That was just from being from the streets; you never align with too many people who are going to backstab you. (Laughs.) So those were some easy rules for me. It worked in my favor. I had a lot of votes going in; a lot of people said they were going to vote for me if I was in the finals. I feel like I had a lot going in my favor.

You just spoke about how you were a favorite in the finals, a sentiment that seemed to be confirmed in my exit interviews with the other evicted houseguests. Did that idea lie counter to your thoughts about wanting to go home, considering how close you were?

I definitely felt like I had a chance. I feel like I played a good game. I could have stayed, but the reason I wanted to compete is that I felt like they were playing me like a toy. The tables were turning. I had seen people weren’t laughing anymore. I had seen people get put up. My last deal with Ross [was that], if he didn’t put me up, if he got the Veto and pulled someone else down, he was going to put up Mark. Then we were going to see where their loyalties lie. And then with Marissa, she knew I wanted to go home, and she was aligned with Ross. I said, “Hey if Ross doesn’t send me home, he’s not playing fair. So you can stay with him, but don’t stay with Mark.” If that happened, he would have had me, Ariadna, and Marissa voting to evict Mark. And we would have had Omarosa. I felt like I was in a really good spot.

You were just speaking about Mark, and it seemed like you always wanted to target James throughout your time in the game. What was it about those two guys that drew your ire?

Outside of the game, we have a great relationship; we had a lot of great moments. I feel like they thought they had more control than what they had. They’re definitely really good players, and I felt like Mark thought he was safe a couple of times when I was going to try to get him out and save James, just to break them up and get the numbers away from James. We had a lot of great moments in terms of “bro talk.” So that was really fun. When the show’s over, we’re going to go out and have a good time. But I came into the game letting everyone know that I had no alliance, and I would never be wrong with you. I was straight up. I feel like I had the upper hand because I came in on the offense.

Omarosa ends up being the Head of Household to send you out. Do you have any admiration towards her, considering she was able to finally “grant your wish” and put you on the block?

I learned a lot about Omarosa. A lot of things were said about her in the house. Any time somebody came to me and tried to throw dirt on somebody’s name, I always told them, “That has nothing to do with me.” (Laughs.) When I look at the tape and I hear people speak, everyone would say that Omarosa is probably the most upfront person there. I didn’t know that because everybody kept throwing dirt on her name and saying she’s lying, when really Shannon broke up the house. Shannon destroyed the girls alliance. With that being said, I think Omarosa is great. I feel bad that I left, especially for the Big Brother fans and for her. But I think she did a really good job on the show gaining people’s love.

You talked before about the people you had in your corner and this plan you were formulating with Ross. Who were you looking to ideally sit next to in the end game, if you wanted to make it to the finals?

I think if I sat next to Ariadna or Marissa, it would have been tough. They had a lot of fans. I really didn’t care, because I was thinking more about who I wanted to get out. So that game for me was more personal. The only thing that got me going was people who wanted to keep me away from my wife. I had to find something to tick me off to start to fight and compete, and then I figured I would just attack people who kept me away from my wife and gave me something to attach my competitive nature to. So the game for me was all personal, and I was trying to figure out ways to break up the house and send people home. The only people I wanted to go home were James, Keshia, and Shannon, and then I was happy.

Speaking towards the subject of your wife, we had a moment at the last eviction where you got to see her send you a message. Looking at how things played out, do you think that helped or hurt your overall mental state?

When I saw her, it brought tears to my eyes. So I guess it didn’t help me too much. (Laughs.) I wanted to see her and my kids. I was just so happy. If my kids had shown up on that screen, I probably would have cried even more. But it was just an amazing feeling to see her. I think it kind of helped, and it helped everyone. Everybody needed that.

Let’s talk about Orwell. You were up to a lot of antics in the house, one of them being your relationship with the stuffed owl. What made you gravitate so much towards him?

The owl was very important to me. I didn’t have my family. I was trying to attach myself to something, and I had nothing. So when I came across the owl in the parlor, and I felt it, it was cozy and comfortable. Then I brought it to the bed with me, and I started to cuddle it. I put its fur on my face, and when I did that, I’m like, “I want to sleep with this owl.” (Laughs.) So I slept with the owl. It gave me a little bit of comfort [instead of] my family. It brought me an extra ten days. Without him, I don’t know what I would have done. I was pretty sad not being able to go home.

Is there any chance you can petition the NBA to change one of the teams’ mascots to an owl in honor of Orwell?

(Laughs.) That would be pretty funny. I think the owl might have a place in my heart.

How would you advise future houseguests to try to deal with homesickness and anxiety while living in the Big Brother house?

I think the main thing is to get your mind right. If you tend to miss your family like I do, then you have to make sure your mind is right. Make sure everything’s settled back home. You don’t want to have anything not handled back at home. For me, I’m getting married very soon, so that was an issue. I would also say you definitely want to train. It’s an even competition, but just because you have big muscles or do super cardio, you might not be ready for certain events. I wasn’t ready for certain events. It’s definitely a physical event and a thinking event, and want to read. There’s a lot of things you could do to give yourself a chance to win.