He tried his best! That’s how Matthew Turner sums up his Big Brother season 24 game after coming in third place during the Sunday, September 25, finale.
The thrift store owner, 23, lost the last Head of Household competition to Monte Taylor, but was still confident the personal trainer would take him to the end. Instead, Monte surprised Turner and chose to sit next to Taylor Hale, who eventually went on to win the season in an 8-1 vote.
“I would’ve taken him,” Turner exclusively tells Us Weekly after the finale. “When I asked him the question or whatever, I was like, ‘With you evicting me, why do you expect my vote?’ And he said, ‘Well, I found out you had a final two with Kyle [Capener], and then that changed everything.’ I know that was his filler answer. That wasn’t the case. We had talked about that extensively. … As far as the jury told me, he would’ve done a lot better if he just took me to the end. I didn’t expect that, but my jury management was awful, so I understand it. But with that being said, as Monte would say, it was a blunder and I think he could have won if he was against me because people did not love my gameplay.”
He jokes, “I don’t even know how you get the jury to like you,” adding, “I tried my best.”
The jury didn’t seem to respect Turner’s game and even laughed at the thought of him winning. At one point, Michael Bruner said that Turner should have taken more credit for the moves he helped make.
“That is a very good point, honestly,” Turner responds. “And with that being said, maybe I am overly passive or need to be more confident in the actions I did because, maybe, I should have stood on the ladder rung that was kicking out Michael, and I did kick him out. But honestly, I think I’m just being self-aware. Monte also did a huge part in kicking out Michael. And not that I’m, like, trying to step down from that because I think I did a lot of big moves, but at the end of the day, I think it was almost a 50/50 split. I don’t know what was aired, but Monte was like, ‘We’re kicking out Michael’ when I walked into that room during the double [eviction]. I was like, ‘Oh, wait, that’s the plan.’ I totally forgot.”
Still, the Massachusetts native seems content with his game and says, “Somehow I ended up going as far as my Big Brother lifespan was meant to be. I have no regrets at the end of the day.”
In the end, Turner was the sole vote for Monte to win, which he had not planned on. He wanted to be on the right side of the vote, and wrongly assumed they were leaning toward Monte. “I asked the people next to me and they were like, ‘I don’t know if we can tell you who we’re voting for,’” the rug maker explains to Us. “So I was like, ‘Perfect, I guess I’m just gonna have to decide.’ And I didn’t wanna be on the wrong side of the vote. I figured Monte was gonna win. So I did the wrong thing and the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen because I didn’t wanna look like I was bitter if everyone was voting for Monte and then I vote for Taylor. Then I look like a bitty jury member because he voted me out.”
Even though he didn’t vote for the former pageant queen, he says, “At the end of day, Taylor played an incredibly resilient game. She went up against a war of obstacles every single week. And I think she – honestly – I think they both deserved the win. I think Monte had a very good competitive game. And Taylor just had an incredible game outside of that. I didn’t wanna be on the wrong side of the vote, which I was. Also I didn’t know what everyone else was doing when they all made their decision. So I was like, all right, I’m gonna vote for my boy.”
