Janelle Pierzina recently revealed a lot about the Big Brother 22 cast, including who she says were the first five people called about appearing and her statement that she turned down the producers at first.
It has become a topic of conversation again on social media, especially since most of those five people didn’t even make it on the show.
The BB22 cast could have looked a lot different if it turned out to be a true group of the best All-Stars that have ever played the game.
As Janelle tells it, the first five people called to be on Big Brother 22 were herself, Rachel Reilly, Dan Gheesling, Derrick Levasseur, and Tyler Crispen.
Having Janelle, Rachel, Dan, Derrick, and Tyler as part of the season could have led to some epic showdowns among the legends, especially since they have such varied strategies on how to play the game.
Dan, Derrick, and Rachel passed on BB22 – sort of
Dan Gheesling and Derrick Levasseur have stated that they decided to not come back for another chance at winning the game. Dan had his fill by winning Big Brother 10 and finishing second on Big Brother 14, while Big Brother 16 winner Derrick said he passed to stay at home with his daughter.
As for Big Brother 13 winner Rachel Reilly, she was pregnant, and while she wanted to go on the show still, the producers decided not to bring on someone who was expecting a baby.
Rachel even said that she would come to play and have her sister (Elissa Reilly Slater) play the physical competitions while she played the strategic portion of the game. She was denied.
Happy birthday to the queen @JanellePierzina thanks for being such an icon and someone to look up to. Have the best day legend ?❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/nW4n9F3i75
— becca (@_becca04) January 10, 2021
Janelle originally passed on joining BB22 cast
It was in March of 2020 when Janelle says that she was first called about appearing on Big Brother again. She was hesitant to do so because she didn’t want to be an easy target. Janelle stated that she was assured that other targets would be invited in a later phone call, so she agreed to be a part of the BB22 cast.
We all saw that this didn’t really turn out to be the case, as the only real target when the season got started was Janelle. With the inclusion of Kaysar Ridha on the BB22 cast, Janelle became an even bigger target, which led to her eviction in Week 3.
It sure would have been fun to see how things could have played out if people like Dan Gheesling, Derrick Levasseur, Rachel Reilly, Britney Haynes, Andy Herren, and Kaycee Clark had been on the cast instead of some of the people who did make the cut.
Kaycee recently confirmed that it was a COVID-19 positive test that ruled her out, and Andy (Big Brother 15 winner) has been very vocal about not even getting an invite.
Big Brother is currently on hiatus at CBS.