Monte Taylor is opening up! He talks about his time in the Big Brother house, negative comments he made towards Taylor Hale, and where he went wrong in the game.
It has been over a week since Taylor Hale won Big Brother 24, but there are still many questions that have been left unanswered about the mistreatment of America’s Favorite Player.
Monte Taylor, who came in second had an interesting story surrounding the former Miss Michigan. During the beginning of the season, he campaigned to the other houseguests on why she should be evicted after believing a lie from Paloma, only later to join forces with her. A romance then blossomed between the two, but towards the end, tensions were on a high after Monte made several comments to Taylor that not only upset some fans but also made them uncomfortable.
Monte talked with Benny Adams about those comments he said to Taylor, where he stands now with the season 24 winner, and what’s next for him.
Did you have a game plan, and did the plan change towards the end of the season?
“I always said there were four things I needed to do to survive and make it to the end, One of those was winning HOH and veto competitions when I needed to, and to be honest with you, I had no competition where I threw it, I actually lost those competitions. The second thing was to join a powerful alliance, people I could trust and lean on in my game. Third, was avoiding showmances and bromances, you saw how well I did at that. The fourth was sending friendly goodbye messages to the jury. When I walked in that was my game plan, hanging on those four things and action over words. I wanted to see who I could trust based on the way they were acting, and the time we spent talking about the game.”
You mentioned all of these awesome game moves where do you think you went wrong in your game?
“I don’t know if there was any obvious reason because I made it that far and I was in control of my destiny up until that point. I felt good about the moves I made to get to that point. I think it was probably more of an awareness of what Taylor had gone through throughout the entire season that I wish I would have taken more time to investigate because I did not understand how much that resonated with the jury, and I did not understand how much that would resonate with America mostly because I didn’t see what was being done and what was being said about Taylor a lot of that first week. From my perspective, I had just been operating on the fact that someone was lying to me so I felt a certain way about that. Even before that incident, Taylor had been isolated and ostracized a lot for… I don’t know why. For me coming into that awareness that’s something that I wish that I would have learned a little bit more about, but I couldn’t see how I would have figured that out at that moment either because a lot of the people who were part of that got evicted pretty early on in the game and we didn’t have those talks.”
I want to talk about the jury. I remember seeing interviews where you said you were surprised by a lot of the jury votes, one of those jury votes being Terrence. You both had a close relationship, why do you think he voted the way he did?
“I’m not sure. I think he may have had a change of heart after talking to people on the jury and hearing more about the perspective on Taylor that I was not aware of in the house. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he was playing games on me if he was saying one thing and felt another. Terrence was one of those dudes where I think he was playing a fluid game when it came to what he would say to everybody.”
A lot of people are talking about the moment when you confronted Taylor about your God Daughter, as well as when she snatched the headphones from you, where you said if the cameras were not around, you would have been a lot harsher. What did you mean by that?
“I don’t know to be honest with you. At that moment there was a lot of emotion. I felt hurt, I felt sort of annoyed, and I think at that moment I wanted to unfortunately in a very immature nature wanted her to feel the hurt I was feeling at that moment, which is not right and not something that I am proud of. I don’t know what I was talking about as far as being harsher. If I didn’t care about something the worst that I would do is not address it at all and ignore them. For me having that conversation with her, of course, we’re still playing a game, so having a personal conversation and not being jaded by the game is almost impossible, but I still wanted to be able to express how I was feeling and try to help somebody that I cared about, that’s how I felt. The whole comment about me being harsher… I don’t even know how I would act upon that because that’s not in my nature.”
During that same conversation, you somewhat alluded that Paloma and the other houseguests were not in the wrong for how they treated Taylor. Were you surprised with how much love Taylor received once the game was over?
“I think I was… not entirely surprised. I knew that she could connect with people that not a lot of people in that house had. I just didn’t know to the extent of how much she was bullied that first week, and how much that would make people connect with her even more. That perspective was out of my head, especially during a week where I was almost 100 percent convinced, not even during that week but also the following weeks because Taylor and I never had conversations about what happened up until the week of Big Brochella, so that was seven weeks where I was still under the assumption that I don’t know what was happening that first week and I hadn’t become privy of every detail that came into that. Now I’m becoming even more privy to even more of those details and it’s like, oh now I see the picture here that is happening. I think at that moment when I made that comment, it was just an ignorant comment it was just something that I wasn’t aware of what had gone down with Taylor throughout the entire season, and I was just trying to make some sort of hypothesis on why people would have isolated her or would have ostracized her. If I felt hurt by this comment, I thought maybe it could have been happening before or whatever have you. That’s how I felt at that moment. Now I’m realizing it was very unfounded to make that statement. This is something that I’ve talked to her about and we haven’t gotten to that conversation, but I’ve talked to her and apologized for things that have happened early on in the season that she has told me she has seen. We still have a lot more time to go through everything that happened throughout the season but it’s something that started already.”
I love how you mentioned you started talking to Taylor about the things that happened in the house because she had an interview where she said that Indy, Jasmine, Ameerah, and Nicole started the process of owning up to what they have said about her. Where have those conversations with you and Taylor now?
“I don’t have a Twitter, and I think that is where a lot of these clips and videos are sort of displayed so I hadn’t necessarily seen them myself, I have only been operating on what people have told me and are showing me. I’ll also say that Taylor, deservingly so, has been a very busy woman this week and has a lot of PR, so have I as well as being part of the final three and final two, so even us trying to figure out what normal is throughout this past week and a half has been near impossible for us to sit down. Recently we had a conversation, it was still a short one because we had to get to the next thing, There was a press thing that was happening in half an hour and it was a rush conversation, but we started to have that conversation, and I pretty much told her look, I don’t know what you’ve seen, I don’t know what your perspective is on things but I just want to ask you what you have seen because I haven’t directly seen anything myself and I’ve only been hearing things about what I’ve said and what I’ve done and we started out hashing out some of the things she’s seen me say and the things that I did earlier on that made her feel hurt, and to me, that’s all I care about. Unfortunately, I know there’s a fan base out there that would love to see me parade around and have an apology tour to them, but to me, it’s all about the relationship I have with Taylor and how I feel about that so those conversations have started it’s just something that I don’t think people are privy to because they are not in the rooms with us.”
You said on the live feeds you wanted to talk to Xavier and ask him how you did while playing the game. Were you able to ask him that, and what was his response?
“I haven’t gotten the chance to connect with him, I would love to because honestly, he set the bar for me, might have made it even more difficult just by how well he did last season… People kept making comparisons to X while I was in the house, and I was like, I don’t need people thinking that I’m that big of a threat, so I definitely would like to talk to him, but just haven’t had the chance yet, but I’m sure that we will.”
I saw you all were staying at Todrick’s home, what were the conversations like with you all under one roof? did you all still talk about the game?
“It’s only natural that we talk about what happened because a lot of us are coming into the light of what people have seen, different perspectives, and what people were thinking. While you are in the house you can only say so much because you have to protect yourself you can’t show all of your cards to everybody. Now that we have all of our cards out on the table it was so much game talk. It almost felt like we were still in the same house and I was like let’s balance that out with some fun, but it’s also been pretty busy. Like I said Taylor has been booked up top to bottom each day, I as well have had some opportunities to connect with podcasts and different folks, it’s been a balance, but there was a lot of game talk and trying to figure out what was what throughout the season.”
You mentioned that you’re getting opportunities, what’s next for you,? Are you going to continue the reality show route by going on The Challenge or another reality show?
“I’m open to another show, lot of people are very encouraging of me doing The Challenge, it’s a shorter filming season, and I think that is very doable. I also just like how The Challenge operates with the type of comps that they have, but for me right now I just want to get back to my online fitness coaching business, working with new clients, catching up with the clients I’ve already had, helping them hit their fitness goals, and then eventually I do want to get into the podcasts realm. I quit my job this year and started my online fitness coaching. and ended up on a reality TV show, and that all came to deciding to pursue my passions. For me, I want to encourage more people to do that, either helping them in those conversations or giving more examples of those who have done it and showing people it is very possible. That’s probably what’s next for me.”
What would your podcast be called and what would it be about?
“This is where I lack the creativity, this is where I need Turner, I need someone who’s very artsy and has that part of their brain working, that does not work for me for some reason. I haven’t thought of a name, but I think the one that Taylor had come up with in the house was Monte’s Mantras, so that could be something who knows, but we’ll see.”
