The 21-year-old grad student is sharing what her strategy would look like without The Cookout, why she was underestimated this season, and how her relationships–including with Todrick!–are going in her exclusive interview with AfterBuzz TV.
Hannah Chaddha might be done with the Big Brother game this season, but she’s not saying no to coming back for round two in a future all-stars season!
The 21-year-old grad student is sharing what her strategy would look like without The Cookout, why she was underestimated this season, and how her relationships–including with Todrick!–are going after the game in her exclusive interview with AfterBuzz below:
AFTERBUZZ: Did you ever see a path for you and Tiffany getting to final two?
HANNAH: I initially thought that Kyland would see that it would have been better for his game to work with Tiffany and myself than to trench himself between Xavier, Azah, and Big D because they already had a final three. But I guess Kyland was under the impression that the guys were working together, and X was just more loyal to the final three that he had with Azah and Big D. So Kyland was on the outs, and Tiffany and I were hoping that we could use that to kind of reel Kyland in. Kyland ended up winning that first HOH and that first veto, and even with that, kept Xavier, Azah, and Big D safe. I think if Kyland would’ve not targeted Tiffany or myself, then yes, Tiffany and I could have gotten to the final two. But because Kyland chose to turn, that pretty much sealed Tiff’s fate, that sealed my fate, and that sealed his fate.
AFTERBUZZ: What has it been like coming out of the game and stopping interacting with everyone strategically as players?
HANNAH: I don’t want to say I feel like I’m still playing the game, but we’ll be at dinner, and I’ll ask someone to pass the salt, and then we’ll make an alliance to pass the salt around the table. So I guess the game of Big Brother never really stops. But in all seriousness, it’s been amazing to get to know these people as individuals and to be able to have that kind of closure from the game that we can move on as friends, as family members. We’re family now. I think my favorite part of coming out of the house was learning everyone’s secrets just because conspiracy theories in the house were so big. So I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, X, you’re an attorney. Claire, you’re an engineer. Sarah Beth, you’re a forensic chemist.’ Getting to talk to them about their real-life jobs and their families, we don’t have to hold anything back from each other anymore.
AFTERBUZZ: You were big on conspiracy theories in the house. Which ones did you actually believe were true?
HANNAH: I actually believed that Sarah Beth was not a voice actress. I believed that she went by Sarah. I don’t know why that was a conspiracy theory of mine, but I thought that she made up the ‘Beth.’ I genuinely believed that Xavier was not 27. I was convinced. I’m still not so convinced that he’s only 27. And then I knew that Xavier’s real occupation was not a bartender because he didn’t even know how to make a Moscow mule.
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AFTERBUZZ: How did the Big Brother and Todrick collaboration come to be?
HANNAH: We have really made ourselves comfortable in Todrick’s home, so thank you so much to Todrick for his hospitality. He’s actually a big fan of the show, so I think he reached out to Christian because all of us were still in the house and in jury. So we didn’t have any contact with him, but Todrick was like, ‘Hey, do we want to do an informal cast party at my place after the finale?’ And we were just like, sure. So we came over, we met him, he was super cool. And then we got kicked out of our Airbnb because we only had it for two nights, so then Tiffany just texted Todrick and was like, ‘Hey, can me and six other people stay with you for the next couple of weeks?’ And he was like, ‘Yes, I love Big Brother!’ I feel like it’s a mutual starstruck moment. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been watching your YouTube videos since I was like 14 years old, and now you know who I am, and I’m in your home.’ We love Todrick. He’s great.
AFTERBUZZ: Going back to your time in the house, after your HOH where you evicted Alyssa, she said she felt the most betrayed by you. What was it like seeing her so soon in jury?
HANNAH: I thought I would have a week and a half, maybe two weeks. When I had to send her home, that was crushing to me because I won that HOH, and I think she was the first person that I saw when I turned around after I was jumping up and down to celebrate myself. And she just had this look of hope in her eyes because obviously, we had our final two deal with the Sloppy Seconds, so she felt like she and X were good, and it really broke my heart having to tell her that X was the target and she was going on the block only to send her home. That was obviously a lie. She was always supposed to go home. But she and I had a conversation about it in the jury. In fact, we had several conversations about it, and all of the jury members were more than understanding of the mission. None of them really took it to heart. None of them took it personally. They all understood why we did what we felt like we had to do. But that moment was probably the hardest moment, or one of the top two hardest moments, that I experienced in the game.
AFTERBUZZ: Another close ally you had to evict was Derek X. What is your relationship with him like now?
HANNAH: Derek X is someone else. I mean, really, all of the jury members are. Derek X is someone else who wasn’t excited to see me in the jury in the sense that he wanted me to go to the end. Even though I did play a pretty active hand in his eviction and in the eviction of the first five jury members, they were still cheering for me, especially him. He and I are tight. He was a close ally in the house, and he’s a good friend outside of the house. He’s just been supportive and understanding.
AFTERBUZZ: You said heading into the jury that you were excited to get to the bottom of things. What were those initial conversations like when you first got there?
HANNAH: I think The Cookout members were in a very unique position this season. Tiffany came up with the master plan, which is one of, if not the most brilliant plan in BB U.S. history. I said what I said. But the whole purpose of the master plan wasn’t just for us to work with people outside of the alliance, because that’s definitely been done before. But the fact that each member of The Cookout had a person outside of the alliance that fully trusted us, we were in possession of all the information in the house at once. So I can’t really say that I walked into jury, and I was surprised to learn certain things because I felt like Tiffany and I were pretty much aware of everything that was happening in the house.
I guess Claire and Derek X were a little suspicious that The Cookout was working together in the first couple of weeks of jury, but they never said anything to us, and we kind of had a ‘haha moment’ about it. Because Claire and DX were like, ‘Yeah, we were onto you guys. But also, we didn’t know because Tiff and Big D didn’t like each other. Kyland and Azah didn’t like each other.’ So they just kind of shut it down and never revisited that. I guess that was the only thing where I was like, oh, okay, I thought we were a lot slicker than we were.
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AFTERBUZZ: We only saw a few minutes of the jury round table. What was that discussion like?
HANNAH: Jury round table was intense. One, I really wish that we had Dr. Will there just because I’m such a big fan, but I guess my other house guests will have to do–no, I’m just kidding! I thought that it was going to be Azah who walked through the door. I didn’t expect Kyland just because I thought Kyland was going to win that last POV and then evict her, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Kyland. Not because I wanted him out of the game per se, but just because–I mean, I’m not going to lie–I wanted the satisfaction of Kyland knowing that he was wrong to target both Tiffany and myself; that if he hadn’t done that me, Ky and Tiff could have probably made it all the way to final three.
A lot of round table was spent talking about Kyland’s game, and I’m not sure if we were supposed to do that, but we also didn’t have a mediator, so we were just kind of doing our own thing. But from that round table discussion, it was pretty evident that X was going to win. Because we had all these points for why X should be crowned the winner of BB23, and then with Azah and Big D, we were kind of struggling to come up with things just because the only way you can really have an active hand in decision making is by winning competitions and holding power–like tangible power, something that you can show for. And Azah and Big D didn’t win that many competitions. So I’m not saying that they didn’t contribute to The Cookout, and they didn’t deserve to be in the final three, but it was just kind of hard to gauge what they had done because they hadn’t really been in positions of power. From that round table discussion, it was pretty clear that if X ended up in the final two, X was going to win.
AFTERBUZZ: In the round table, Kyland said that you and Big D were essentially interchangeable as players. What did you make of that?
HANNAH: Oh my gosh, and he still stands by it. I was offended. I was definitely insulted. Interchangeable to me only has one definition, and that’s that two things are the same. I do feel like this season, I was underestimated by a lot of the houseguests, and some of that was strategic. Some of that was intentional because it’s never a bad thing in the game of Big Brother to be underestimated, but also ideas would come out of my mouth that we would use, that we would implement, and then credit was not given where credit was due. Kyland comparing my game to a Big D’s game is just another example of that.
I don’t believe that I played the same game as Big D. I think Big D played more of a social game; I think I played more of a strategic game because that’s just how my mind works. In that house, I was constantly running scenarios, constantly running probabilities: talking to Tiffany about the process of elimination of our partners, talking to Tiff about tweaking the master plan, forming relationships with non-Cookout members–I mean, I had a final two with pretty much all of them except Sarah Beth and Britini. I’m proud of the game that I played, and maybe Big D is proud of the game that he played, but I just feel like I played much more of a strategic game than he did. And I also was able to win a couple of things while I was in the house. So sorry, Ky, but I feel differently.
AFTERBUZZ: This season, you had to prioritize the interests of The Cookout, but if you were in an all-star season where you were just focused on your own game, what would your strategy be?
HANNAH: I came into this house wanting to play a very cutthroat game. But I looked around, I saw five people who were like myself, and even though I wasn’t officially brought into the alliance until I think week two, I still knew that I wanted to protect each and every one of them, and I think they had the same understanding with me, so I really had to change up my strategy. I had to play a lot more passively those first couple of weeks because the last thing I wanted to do was have a huge target on my back and then have to rely on The Cookout members to bail me out because then we would have to show our cards week four if we hadn’t been able to switch the target from myself to Whitney. I definitely had to change the way that I navigated the season because I wasn’t playing for one person; I was playing for six.
In an all-star season, I would be a lot more ruthless, so hopefully, if I’m asked back, they don’t pull up this clip, and they’re like, ‘Okay, we know what’s up. She has to go first.’ But I think I would still play a strategic game because, like I said, that is just how I am as a person. That’s how my brain works. But I would play a much more disloyal game. I would not care.
AFTERBUZZ: If you were in an all-star season, who would you want to be in the house with?
HANNAH: Oh my gosh. Can I say all of them? Just because I’m a big fan of everyone and I want to meet them. If I could work with maybe five people, I would want to work with–oh my gosh, so many great players–Vanessa Rousso from season 17, Rachel Reilly from 12 and 13, Ragan from 12, Da’Vonne, Bayleigh, and Frankie Grande. Paul [Abrahamian] even –I don’t know if Paul would want to work with me, but I think those would be my people.
AFTERBUZZ: Would you ever do a “Hot Takes with Hannah” podcast?
HANNAH: Well, apparently, Hot Takes with Hannah was way too boring for them to show on any of the episodes. Hot Takes with Hannah was really just an excuse for Xavier and I to leave and go talk game, and no one would interrupt us because we’d be filming. If Xavier’s down, then yeah, maybe, but I would need him. I would need my big brother with me. Plus, he’s the winner, and hopefully, he cuts me a check!
Want more Big Brother? Check out interviews with the entire cast on the website now, and keep following AfterBuzz for post-show interviews with Claire Rehfuss and Derek Xiao coming this week!
