Eviction is the weekly process of a houseguest leaving the Big Brother House.
North American Process[]
Julie communicating with Rachel, who casts her vote to evict in secret in the Diary Room
During the Live Eviction episode, the two nominees (sometimes three on special occasions) are given a chance to make their final pleas. After each nominee has spoken, the remaining houseguests head one at a time to the Diary Room to cast their vote to evict. The voting houseguests communicate to Julie Chen (or Arisa Cox) without the others hearing their vote. The Head of Household and the two nominees (or three nominees on special occasions) are ineligible to vote. However, in the case of a tie, the Head of Household casts the determining vote to evict. After the votes are in, Julie (or Arisa) reports the results of the vote to the houseguests, telling them the number of votes cast in favor of each nominee. At that moment, the evicted houseguest has one minute to collect their bags, say good-byes, and walk out the front door, where they have an interview with the host before returning either to the real world or the Jury House. Evicted houseguests normally get to view a good-bye tape with messages from their fellow houseguests.
During Seasons 2-9, eviction votes were mostly prerecorded with the results being announced during live eviction episodes. Live voting was occasionally used in the latter part of the earlier seasons; however, this format change was not made permanent until the addition of a studio audience in Season 10.
Post-Eviction[]
Following a houseguest's eviction, their photograph on the Memory Wall turns black and white. Normally, evicted houseguests are permanently out of the game, but on rare occasions they may return by a vote (by America/Canada or by their fellow housemates) or a competition. This can be viewed on the Previously Evicted Contestant page.
Other instances of short-term returns include Jase Wirey returning in a Grim Reaper costume in Big Brother All-Stars (US), Jessie Godderz returning in a gorilla costume in Big Brother 10 (US), Casey Turner returning to host the OTEV Power of Veto competition in Big Brother 11 (US) (although he had no direct contact with the houseguests, communicating the rules of the game through the PA system), and Rachel Reilly returning for 24 hours as a result of Pandora's Box in Big Brother 12 (US). During Week 12 of Big Brother 16 (US), the jury members - Jocasta Odom, Hayden Voss, Zach Rance, Donny Thompson, Nicole Franzel and Christine Brecht returned to the house to compete in a Luxury Competition with the remaining houseguests betting on which would win. Hayden won, granting himself and Victoria Rafaeli $5,000 each. However, the remaining houseguests were isolated from the jurors.
International Process[]
Public Voting[]
Week 11 Eviction Night of Big Brother Australia 9 showing the total percentage of the public's save votes.
This process is the most common eviction process used by most international Big Brother versions, where housemates nominate between themselves, and the ones with the most votes are nominated for a public vote that will determine who will be evicted. The voting is usually a week-long process, where nominations starting the week and evictions ending the week. The voting opens after the nominations take place, however before the voting lines are opened, the nominees are given few minutes to make pleas on why they deserve to stay.
Depending on the format of the season, the viewer voting has three types; either the public votes to evict (with the housemate with the most votes being evicted) or votes to save (with the housemate with the fewest votes being evicted), or a save-evict voting (a combination of the vote to save and vote to evict).
In Big Brother 1 (U.S.) the eviction process was different from that of the following American seasons and followed the international format of Eviction. Instead, a "banishment" happened every two weeks, with all of the houseguests voting on who the nominees would be. America would then decide who would be evicted.
Other Processes[]
Eviction Competition[]
1st Eviction results of the Civilian Chapter in Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7.
In Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7, a new and special format of weekly eviction was introduced, an Eviction Competition. Instead of a voting system, the nominees will compete in an eviction challenge every week wherein they must avoid falling in last place. The housemate who performed poorly in the challenge will be the one evicted. In Pinoy Big Brother, the eviction challenge is considered as one of the variants of the series' safety challenge, Ligtask Challenge.
Due to Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7's season format, the Eviction Ligtask Challenge was used as the season's main eviction format until the house was down to seven housemates. When only seven housemates remained, the public voting became the main eviction process and the Eviction Ligtask was replaced by the Veto Ligtask. This format was used in all three parts of the four-part season. The Eviction challenge also made recurring appearances as a special twist in the succeeding seasons.
Hit The Road in Big Brother (U.S.) is considered a variant of an eviction competition, but it was used only as a one-time twist per season, not a main format for evicting contestants. It became the main format of the spin off season Big Brother: Reindeer Games, where houseguests were referred to as "eliminated" upon their exits instead of "evicted".
Eviction Twists[]
In some cases, eviction processes are affected by twists.
- Fake Eviction: A houseguest is evicted but isn't actually out of the game. Instead, the fake evicted houseguest is usually sent in a secret location in relation to a bigger twist.
- Double Eviction: Two houseguests are evicted in one day, or within the same week.
- Triple Eviction: Three houseguests are evicted in one day or within the same week.
- Mass Eviction: Four or more houseguests are evicted in one day or within the same week.
- Instant Eviction: A houseguest is evicted immediately in one day.
Trivia[]
Franchise[]
- Martin Jonkman from Big Brother 1 (Netherlands) is the first-ever housemate to get evicted in the entire series of Big Brother.
- Big Brother 1 (US) is the only season in Big Brother history that didn't use the term "eviction" or "evicted", instead they used "banishment" or "banished".
- Big Brother 2 (US) is the first season to adopt the North American format where contestants evict each other, taking the eviction power away from the viewers.
Big Brother (U.S./Canada)[]
- Only five players have appeared in multiple seasons of Big Brother US and Big Big Brother Canada and have never been evicted.
- Dick Donato won Big Brother 8 (US) and walked during Week 1 of Big Brother 13 (US).
- Dan Gheesling won Big Brother 10 and made the Final 2 again in Big Brother 14 (US).
- Paul Abrahamian made the Final 2 in both Big Brother 18 (US) and Big Brother 19 (US).
- Cody Calafiore was the runner-up of Big Brother 16 (US) and won Big Brother 22 (US).
- Anthony Douglas made the Final 2 and was the runner-up in both Big Brother Canada 7 and Big Brother Canada 12.
- Dan, Paul, Cody and Anthony are the only three to never be eliminated overall.
- Victor Arroyo is the only person to be evicted 3 times in a single season.
- Brendon Villegas, Sindy Nguyen and Nicole Franzel have been evicted 3 times across multiple seasons.
- Janelle Pierzina and Kaysar Ridha have both been evicted 4 times across multiple seasons.
- Nicole Franzel is the only winner to have been a two-time evicted houseguest in another season.