Hey jury, I wanna start by saying thanks to you all and to Ikah and his production interns for making this a fun and often painfully slow season. I came in excited to get the experience of being a coach and I really did want to have a tight team I could ride with far… Clearly I should not have set my expectations high at all because I was on the fast track to the trash with my family. The good that came from seeing my family sinking so early was that I had time from early on to start preparing for the day I would enter the game knowing it was not far off. I set myself up to be able to go from coach to player and slide under the radar long enough to cement my position in the game without being a target until later on in the game.

From day 1 when Brandon asked me to create a chat between our two families, I was working to create the bonds that would outlast Diamonds and Rosé. My family was supposed to work with Emmett’s and even though it didn’t work out for a single person in my family, I held on to those bonds deep into the game. After the first week of the game, I knew I wanted to enter because things were not going well as a crime family so I needed to make a plan for a smooth entrance. I tried a few times to get something going for my family with literally any family other than Emmett’s, but a lot of propositions didn’t stick and quickly I started hearing about the other families teaming up. One specifically was the Zac/Emmett alliance, which Brady heard from Kyle Reds and Bob. I knew I needed to start using information to break up the other families so I told Brady I hoped that he kept his mouth shut about our alliance with Emmett’s family so he couldn’t be thrown under the bus in return. It was THAT moment out of all moments Brady chose to stay quiet. And in the words of the great Tom… “You didn’t reply so that’s a YES from you.” I threw Kyle Reds under the bus, and not Bob because at that point I was still planning to try to work with Bob individually. The war kicked off with Brandon and Emmett calling out Kyle and it was going great watching those families break away. Until very quickly it turned back around and Brady was thrown under the bus for what I warned him about and he’d blown me off for. So as Brady dug deeper over the next week, I knew I needed to cut my losses. I did not campaign for him because I did not want any reflection of his gameplay on me and I really didn’t think there was a chance for him. In a horrible chain of events I lost Brady and Erik in the span of an hour and was down to one player after two weeks. Lauren.

At first I tried with Lauren to get her to help herself in the game but often it ended in her throwing me under the bus to people (intentionally or not) and then me having to clean up the mess and clear my name. One instance, where she came to me and said that Zac’s team was after her so that they could get me out. I agreed with her that they were doing that and within seconds I had Kyle messaging me asking why I was saying he was gunning for me! I think I pretty successfully dug myself out of that situation and it even ended with Kyle making a chat between himself, me, Liam Bean, and Lauren. While this chat certainly wasn’t a close knit group, I did have a good bond going with Liam already and I used that chat to keep close with where Kyle’s head was at. From this interaction with Kyle where I was confronted for lying about his intentions I managed to build trust to the point that Kyle said that he believed he had me wrapped around his finger by the time of his eviction.

It was situations like these where I was able to use my social skills in the game to keep positive relationships with people that allowed me to come into the game in an easy transition. Because I had been laying low publicly while building relationships behind the scenes, I was able to act clueless with people and let them think they were guiding me through the game once I entered. I had insight to a lot that happened and yet was never in danger in situations later in the game that people maybe thought I should have been because they didn’t see the relationships I had. Sure on paper I was safe by the nature of the game for 5 weeks. I was not sitting on my ass letting my team carry me and I was actively planning for my future in the game.

Upon entering the game, I was in an alliance of Brandon, Tom, Liam moo, Kyle G, and Liam bean, which pretty quickly was breaking down to just be Brandon, Tom, and Liam moo. I also had the alliance with Liam bean and Kyle R as backup in case someone on the other side of the house got power I believe the two of them would have kept me off the block. Whether official or not on their end, I saw Kyle R, Liam bean, Bob, and Kyle G as the other side from Emmett’s family since it was clear from the point of jury they all had some intention of going after Brandon. In the first couple weeks as a player, I let the sides clash and mix. All the while I was beginning to plan for how I could get other coaches into the game. Namely, I wanted Rose and Emmett to enter. I wasn’t necessarily close with either but I think those two would have been easiest for me to work with. I was open to working with Zac if he entered but we didn’t manage to have a conversation until he entered the game on double eviction night and at that point I did not feel comfortable sticking my neck out.

The end game was a bit rough, when it became clear no one was going to take out Brandon until I took action. I had previously hoped I’d passively let someone else get the blood on their hands and continue with my game fine without him but it didn’t happen that way. I told Brandon at the end of final 6 week that he was my target as soon as I had the chance to get him and that promise stood all the way to finale night. Brandon is a competition king so…. this still didn’t go well. I took a gamble openly targeting Brandon because we have seen what has happened to everyone else, but I knew I had circumstances protecting me. If I were evicted at final 5, Mud would enter and then I believe he would have helped Rose follow. No one wanted that so I was confident I would be fine for final 5 (really a final 4 situation since Emmett was "whacked"). After a much needed veto win at the real final 4 to save myself, I went into final 3 feeling like I needed the final HOH. I still had every intention of cutting Brandon if I won and I expected the same in return, but here I am standing before all you jurors.

I can get into specific evictions if someone wants to ask that question but for now I wanted a more general opening.

I will be around for questions a little while tonight, and tomorrow evening before the reunion. I hope I get a chance to get to everyone before Ikah’s deadline, but work is busy and some of y’all live on the other side of the planet.

Alright well i kinda all read that whew Chile so I'll be starting with the first question of the night

Brandon : I got two things first why Everytime you were in power talk down, harrase, or practically bully people who were against you ( Note : not my personal experience just from what I've heard and when i was observing )  and why act like the loyal hero in the final 3 when you been so ruthless the entire season
Ethan : tell me a move that benefitted your game and not your opponent Brandon

Ethan : tell me a move that benefitted your game and not your opponent Brandon

My second week of HOH after veto was cancelled, my target was Tom because I wanted Rose to enter the game. At the time I was led to believe the numbers were there to vote Tom out because I kept hyping up Zac entering as like a worst case scenario. Ultimately Brandon flipped the vote because he was confident in his score on the number counting HOH and it was decided to bring Zac in to just take him right back out. Had I gotten my way it would have been myself, Emmett, Rose getting teamed up and possibly try to carry Bob in there too. While the move didn't pan out it was still in motion.

I think voting you out Kyle was more beneficial to me than to Brandon. At the time he did want you out but what difference to him was it if you or Bob went out that week? Bringing Emmett in was not in Brandon's best interest. I did not see Liam moo, Brandon, and Emmett as a solid trio like everyone wanted to claim and Emmett was open with me about wanting Brandon out.

Towards the end of the game I clearly didn't have much room to maneuver but taking out Tom at final 4 helped me get here. Some part of me believes Brandon would have taken Tom over myself to final 2 and I think that's what Brandon's plan was, and I also felt like Emmett would be more helpful in trying to beat Brandon in final HOH.

I have openly been after Brandon since final 6. Before that I had withheld plenty of information and did not throw anyone under the bus to him if they came to me with a plan to get him out. I never gave much in return when people came to me because I didn’t trust anyone else to keep a secret and not use my words to save themselves. My stance was that I needed to stay on his good side until we had a clean shot and we just never got that. The best we had was my week as HOH with a cancelled veto, but I’m not psychic and for all I knew there was no precedent for a veto getting cancelled lol

Hey bitches, I’m super proud of you both and love you both. It’s a hard decision honestly so these answers need to be PERFECT.

Brandon - I honestly really thought we became good friends through this game but it looks like you went out of your way to be a lot of people’s friends and then kinda bully style evict them (not me personally) while relying on comps. So I want to know how did this way of “exploding” at people benefit you and did you think you made a target for yourself for doing it??

Ethan - I was probably your biggest supporter in the Jury House I saw how you slid under the radar even though you were a massive target you used Brandon's strengths against him but the general consensus is that you didn’t play your own game. You were safe for a lot of the game. There’s some REALLY questionable moves you made as well so I want to know what you did outside of Brandon’s knowledge and how were you involved in the game as a coach?

Alright thank you guys may the best man win good luck

Ethan - I was probably your biggest supporter in the Jury House I saw how you slid under the radar even though you were a massive target you used Brandon's strengths against him but the general consensus is that you didn’t play your own game. You were safe for a lot of the game. There’s some REALLY questionable moves you made as well so I want to know what you did outside of Brandon’s knowledge and how were you involved in the game as a coach?

As it’s been mentioned, Brandon and I were good friends coming into this game. I’m not blind to the fact that he is an incredible player, and because of this, for a good chunk of the season, I had an internal conflict. He is a friend, but this is a game that I want to win. I had faith that there was someone who could and would take Brandon out so I wouldn’t get that blood on my hands and I left that door open for people. As I said in my response to Kyle G, there was a lot of talks had where I did not explicitly say I was open to getting Brandon out but I hope you all got the underlying message that if you got the chance I was in full support of the plans being pitched to me to take him out. And I did not give the names of the people saying these things or any of the things that were said and each of you know you would have been called out for shit if I had. This was all behind Brandon’s back— though he of course was aware that there were plots against him, he didn’t know the extent of information I had on any of it.

Brandon’s strategy of putting fear in people to stop them from putting him up worked, and I was resigned to the fact I would only backdoor him on my HOH weeks which ended with him getting 1 veto and the other veto getting cancelled. I think my biggest regret is putting up Kyle R at all, I didn’t realize at the time that he believed he had me locked down and I would have carried out that relationship further if I did know this. To me this is my most questionable move but it sounds like you have a few in mind and I’ll give a shot at a couple.

I voted out Kyle G over Bob because I didn’t want Zac to enter at that point as I was still trying to reestablish some kind of communication. Emmett at this point was kind of fallen off the map and I realized him coming in instead of Zac would be better for me if I could get onto working with Emmett right away because there wasn’t any bad blood I didn’t think emmett would ever come after me. Emmet and I formed a good relationship for the remainder of the game once he came in so I believe for me this was a better move as opposed to someone like Zac entering who would come in and try to crush comps and I’d be on his hit list.

I voted out Zac over Emmett because I still had not gotten any communication from Zac until he was on the block begging to be saved. Before that I had gotten an “lmao” as a response to a question about if he wanted to come into the game and trying to get something going. That is not someone I felt comfortable saving over Emmett who I was building a good relationship with already. Additionally, once Tom was confirmed offline for the vote it was no shot I was gonna tie the vote.

Let me know if you had a different move in mind.

Onto my involvement as a coach. I went into this a little in my opening, and it was a short period of time that I was a coach for. While Brady was on my team I did give him advice and try to use what he gave me to help make moves. He gave me good information in return and we agreed on how to use it as far as what deals we’d make and who to trust. When I offered to throw Kyle under the bus for leaking the Zac/Emmett alliance he agreed it was a good idea and that was when I asked if he had leaked the Ethan/Emmett alliance. I didn’t get a response at all but I was under the impression he was smarter than that to agree to me throwing someone under the bus when they have perfect ammo to retaliate. Once this shit show was under way i knew I needed to cut the losses for the rest of my team because I still had faith in them.  Brady was digging himself deep in week 2. I was trying to play a more low key game so I wasn’t going to try and pull him back up. Again Brady was evicted week 2, and it was during week 1 that shit blew up for him. So I had very little opportunity.

My other players were Erik and Lauren. Erik quit at the end of week 2 after not being active. I did often try talking to Lauren and wound up getting thrown under the bus to people on Mud’s and Zac’s teams mostly. I gave her a pretty harsh coaching lesson after probably the third time I’d been confronted by someone saying they heard such and such conversation from Lauren. Then she went inactive and got expelled. Often in my time as a coach I was approached by people looking to get me to tell Lauren to do what they want and there sometimes was no back and forth conversation with her. So the weeks after Erik quit were very empty of any actual coaching bc of the fact i’d get no responses or any indication where her head was at and more so those weeks were me planting the seeds for when I’d enter.

So my coaching days were disappointing but like I said, it gave me time to build a network to help me enter the game smoothly without making waves and without being targeted.

Anyways I’m gonna sleep so if there’s a question posted overnight i’ll catch it in the morning!

Hey guys!

First thing I want to say congratulations on making it here. You both deserve it! No hard feelings. Second thing I want to say is that I have a small life so I will not be reading your essay speeches. My vote will simply be determined off of this question and the Skype chat to follow.

Questions:

Brandon: While your competition game was very impressive and you managed to get here without facing eviction (I think), how can you justify winning when you would’ve been evicted when Dylan was HOH had Lauren come online? Additionally, how can you justify the way you treated many people in the game? I’m not bitter and don’t take things personally, but it seems like you took it too far sometimes.

Ethan: To be honest with you, I think you’re a sheep. Tell me moves you made on your own. From my perspective as a coach, player (briefly hehe), and a juror it seemed as every move you made benefited Brandon and co. Tell me why I’m wrong.

Again, congrats guys! I am leaning towards one person, but this could sway me. Good luck both!

Dylan was HOH had Lauren come online?
I choked she robbed us all

Idk if these have already been asked/answered to some extent but here’s my questions:

Brandon: You said explaining why you voted to evict me would jeopardize your game. So, explain why you voted me out and what you meant when you said this.

Also Brandon after reading most of your answers, it seems like you’re staying away from specifics. I want names and specific moments. I guess I another question I have stemming from that is just how you saw each juror as apart of your game and how they worked into your plan. Start with me and then either wait for others to ask their own questions or answer for everyone if u want.

Ethan: I think you kinda already answered this, but explain why you nominated me and Tom on your HoH and what your plans were for that week.

2nd question for Ethan: I think you kinda answerered this already too but, Do you think being the first crime boss to enter the game as a player helped or hurt you? Had Zac not come into play and robbed you of your original team, how would you strategy have changed with the people you would’ve had?

Ethan: To be honest with you, I think you’re a sheep. Tell me moves you made on your own. From my perspective as a coach, player (briefly hehe), and a juror it seemed as every move you made benefited Brandon and co. Tell me why I’m wrong.

Hey Zac, so I'll give a brief summary of points I've mostly already made as far as moves I made on my own. But I want to start and address the sheep comment. I don't think that just because I wasn't the person in the main chat calling people out or actively and constantly trying to manipulate people into bending my way is grounds for calling me a sheep. I was not the high visibility player that Brandon was and he made sure you all knew what he wanted. My method was more subtle and required less brute force. So I get if a lot of the jury didn't see it and only can recognize that Brandon is loud so he MUST have been making all the decisions, but that was entirely the point of the strategy. I came in as a threat going from coach to player, I made it my goal to minimize that threat level to keep myself safe. I don't have the same skill in challenges so I can't use the same gameplay where I call people out and stir up drama and make my target big and be able to fall back on the fact that I can still win the veto. So keep an open mind on the following.

My moves:
-I would say that throwing Kyle Reds under the bus was my first move that did not benefit Brandon or anyone in his family, and that was during week 1. I knew it would set Brandon off for the first time of the season and bring out that aggressive gameplay that would get him targeted and break up a powerful alliance in Zac/Emmett's teams. It exposed the fact that Emmett's family had multiple deals going, and got specifically Brandon targeted the first time his family didn't have HOH during week 3. It never got exposed that I was the one that set off this event because the people who knew I did this were all down to protect me even as a coach with safety in the game.

-I had a good relationship in the game specifically with Kyle R and Liam bean, which was my backup for in case someone managed to take Brandon out at any point. I think with this group I had the challenge skills to carry me but I also believe my relationship with the two of them would have helped me ride out the game to the end if Brandon got cut.

-I often was a person that people came to with plans to get Brandon out. In a couple of my answers I've discussed why I didn't jump on these loudly and proudly, but I was in support of the plans and was doing what I could to let people act on them to an extent. I withheld all this information from Brandon so that he couldn't plan around them and to protect these people from being targeted any sooner than they already would be. Like I said before, I was only going to backdoor Brandon at any point before final 6, so my nominations may have been a bit shady but they were the moves that would continue protecting my position in the case that I can't make a move on Brandon.

-I targeted Tom during my second HOH  because I believe he was deep in Brandon's pocket since he was at this point the only person in the game who hadn't expressed a desire to target Brandon and I wanted Rose to come in the game. She would have been an ally to me and an enemy to Brandon.

-I openly targeted Brandon at final 6 onward. As we are friends outside this game, I had it in me to tell him I was voting him out the second I had a chance and he knew there was no question about it. It was bold and risky which was something I was avoiding in my gameplay before that point. You can check the game history, he had some form of safety at every point beyond this. And knowing that I was 100% taking him out when I could, he still had to save me in final 5 to ensure Mud and Rose couldn't enter and it was a gamble I took when I bet on the fact that he'd make that move instead of cutting me.

I know who I’m voting for so here are my questions.
Brandon: Why shouldn’t I vote you to win?
Ethan: Think about what you did (or better yet didn’t do) to deserve second place.

Thank you, Ethan. Really strong answer!

•Zac•

Brandon: While your competition game was very impressive and you managed to get here without facing eviction (I think), how can you justify winning when you would’ve been evicted when Dylan was HOH had Lauren come online? Additionally, how can you justify the way you treated many people in the game? I’m not bitter and don’t take things personally, but it seems like you took it too far sometimes.

Hi Zac. Thank you for the question. In terms of Dylan's HoH, this was definitely a low point of a my game. I was absolutely a backdoor target and would have likely gone home if I went up, but I think that there are a few things that play into this. One, I had put in a lot of work all week to insulate myself in the event that I did go up. There was actually a small chance that I survived my backdoor had it actually happened. I did this by leaking information, more specifically information about the chat between you and Mud's chat, to people in order to incentivize them to keep me. It was definitely not a guarantee that I would stay at all, but I think it would have been close. Also, I had put in a lot of work with Dylan the entire week. I gave Dylan the one thing he wanted from me and thought he had been missing from me all game: honesty. I told him about how I lied to Kyle about Brady coming after him, and then I used this new perception of honesty to convince him that I knew that the way I was the backdoor target and that Kyle R. had been the one telling people about the plan and the alliance. This made Dylan very upset and got him to a point where he might not have even put me up. Here are just a few of the excerpts from that string of conversations:
http://prntscr.com/on1ph6
http://prntscr.com/on1q6a
http://prntscr.com/on1qfc
This was absolutely the lowest point of my game. This is the time that I feel as if I was in the most danger. If just one thing worked out differently, I might not be here right now, even if it was not set in stone. But, because none of this actually ended up happening, I would hope that you all would consider the game that WAS played rather than the one that could have been. And I hope that through my answer you can see that I did not just roll over and die—I did what I said my game was all about in my speech, adaptability, and constantly looked for new ways to get myself out of the situation. I will not claim to have played a perfect game and to have always been safe (because that is obviously not the case), but I WILL claim to have always been a fighter and always put in the work to get myself a step farther.

In terms of how I treated people, I acknowledge that I went to far. I said things and confronted people when it was unnecessary, especially with you when you were a coach. I am sincerely sorry about how I talked to all of you, you most of all. A big part of my game was intimidation. By calling out people and publicly fighting with them, I was doing two things: first, I was exposing the cards that were on the table and, two, I was intimidating people into coming after me. What I mean by that is this. When I called people out, such as when I had those house meetings to call out the Zac/Mud alliance, I was simultaneously showing everyone not included in those chats as to what they were being left out on while also uniting them against someone that we could collectively take out together (and furthermore presenting myself as a tool that they could utilize to do this). Especially in the first part of the game when I was primarily calling out you and Kyle R., I wanted to maintain an appearance of honesty and loyalty, of someone that was willing to ride or die with the people I was with and stand opposed to those against us, so that to masque what I was actually doing as well as encourage people to act this way toward me, and I think it paid off in the game. This is what allowed me to constantly receive information and to scare people into making moves or even speaking out against me. I think the most blatant example of this is with my co-finalist, Ethan. He was someone who knew what kind of game I was playing and knew that I was a threat to him, though I believe my intimidation played into him waiting so long, and too long, to make a move. It got to a point where when he targeted me it was going to be very difficult to get me out, and that's exactly what I was going for—to get people to wait just one more week. Ethan was someone who was targeting me but never once put me on the block during any of his HoHs, and I think that this speaks to the game I played.

You asked me to justify this behavior, but I don't know if it is justifiable. A lot of the things I said are inexcusable. However, I hope that you can look past how horrible I was and respect the strategy for what it was. It truly was never my intention to be a bully, though I can understand how I became one, and I absolutely understand if for this reason I lose your vote.