Big Brother’s Brenton Parkes: “I Really Thought I Was Gonna Win“

July 11, 2022

It’s been a wild season of Big Brother Royalty Vs New Contenders, and now, it all comes down to our Final Three: Reggie Bird, Taras Hrubyj-Piper and Johnson Ashak. After making it all the way to the top four, Intruder Brenton Parkes narrowly missed out on his place in the final, but despite it all, he’s “feeling good”.

Chatting to The Latch over the phone, Parkes said that he wished he’d “taken out Taras earlier”, but other than that, all was well.

An Intruder has never won Big Brother Australia, and despite not making it to the Final Three, Parkes said that he still believes “it can be done”.

“I believe that an intruder can win, you just have to be so smart and so wise about who your alliances are,” he said, adding: “I really thought I was gonna win.”

He explained: “Taras said he was gonna take me to the end and as much as he’s a liar, he really did mean it, but unfortunately I backstabbed him really last minute and put his only true best friend up in the firing line.

“If I’d not done that, if I had got rid of Johnson [Ashak] instead of Aleisha [Campbell], he would’ve taken me to the end.”

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Originally, Parkes’ plan was to go into the house as “a big physical threat” who would “go in and go hard and bully people around”. Instead, he soon realised he was “on the back foot instantly” and had to switch gears.

“They were comparing me to Joel [Notley], the old challenge beast, so I had to make a fast decision and pretend I didn’t even know what Big Brother was, and I’m non-threatening so they don’t have to get rid of me,” he said.

It was a strategy that “probably lasted a week or two”, Parkes said, before “they started to clue on”.

“They were like ‘nah, this guy knows what he’s doing’, especially after that first challenge I won where I put up three OGs in the firing line,” he recalled, adding: “I was the first to make a move like that, and they were like ‘nup, he’s either extremely dumb or he knows what he’s doing’.”

As for who Parkes thinks will win the series — and the $250,000 prize money — he said it could go one of two ways.

“If they are going after someone who they think deserves the money or deserves the win, in that they’re just so loveable, then they’ll choose Reggie, but if they go for who’s played the hardest, who’s had their back up against the wall the whole time, then they’ll choose Johnson,” he said.

As for who he’ll be voting for?

“All my votes are going on Johnson,” he said definitively.

Voting for the winner of Big Brother Royalty Vs New Contenders is now open, and you can vote for your winner here.

Big Brother Royalty Vs New Contenders concludes with a live finale tomorrow, Tuesday July 12th. It all kicks off at 7.30pm, only on 7 and 7 Plus.

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