Big Brother season 25 contestant Luke Valentine is catching heat from fans after he dropped the N-word during a recent live feed.
Valentine, 30, let the word slip during a conversation with fellow houseguests Cory Wurtenberger, Hisam Goueli and Jared Fields on Wednesday, August 9. “We’re in the f—king G’s room, n–ga!” he said in a clip of the moment shared via TikTok, after which he covered his mouth with his hand and corrected himself by saying “dude.”
Valentine’s language prompted surprised stares from Wurtenberger, 21, and Goueli, 45. He proceeded to apologize to the group and directly to Fields, who is Black. “It wasn’t what you thought I was [going to say.] I was gonna call him a narwhale [sic],” Valentine told Fields, who said he didn’t care about his use of the word.
Later on in the live feed, Valentine and Fields poked fun at their castmates’ strong reactions to the comment. “I should have made you feel uncomfortable real quick, like, ‘Whoa, bro. What you just say?’” Fields joked before adding, “I don’t give a f—k.”
Some fans of the CBS reality series, however, did not take as kindly to Valentine’s language. “I feel so embarrassed for him, like he really needs to get up and just leave,” one person wrote via X (formerly known as Twitter) on Wednesday, while another stated, “And — as per usual on this show — nobody called him out!!!”
Tagging the show’s official X account, another user tweeted on Wednesday, “Sooooooooo what are we gonna do about this??????”
CBS and the show’s producers addressed the incident in a statement to Us Weekly on Wednesday: “Luke violated the Big Brother code of conduct and there is zero tolerance in the house for using a racial slur. He has been removed from the house. His departure will be addressed in Thursday night’s show.”
Big Brother is no stranger to having controversial contestants. In 2013, houseguest Aaryn Gries made racist and homophobic comments on air, some of which were directed at castmate Helen Kim. In addition to telling Kim to “go make some rice,” Gries, now 32, joked that she, herself, looked like a “squinty Asian.”
Host Julie Chen Moonves — who has Chinese and Burmese heritage — later spoke out against Gries’ remarks on a July 2013 episode of The Talk. “When I found out that Aaryn, who is a 22-year-old girl, made anti-gay, anti-black and anti-Asian comments, I have to be honest, the Asian ones hit me the most,” Chen Moonves, 53, said at the time. “I heard about her describing Asians as ‘squinty-eyed’ and ‘go make a bowl of rice.’ It stung. I took it personally. I’m a human being.”
After being confronted by Chen Mooves about her language on the show, Gries was eliminated and apologized before leaving the house. “Being Southern, it is a stereotype and I have said some things that have been taken completely out of context and wrong. I do not mean to ever come off racist,” she noted. “That is not me and I apologize to anyone I have offended for that.”
In recent years, houseguests Kaitlyn Herman, Rachel Swindler, Angela Rummans, Jack Matthews, Kyle Capener and more have received fan backlash for making derogatory and racist comments on the show and during the show’s live feeds.
