Big Brother 28 star Kamu Kirk wants to repair his friendship with Jason De Puy following their turbulent relationship in the game.
“For the first week and a half of the season, maybe even two weeks, Jason and I had a really good relationship,” the MMA fighter, 32, exclusively told Us on Friday, August 21, following his eviction from the Big Brother house. “We had a couple great, deep conversations where we, you know, we opened up to each other about things, and we were good friends.”
Kamu added that he was close to forming an alliance with Jason, 35, during the early stages in the game.
“In fact, at one point in time, I actually thought about starting an alliance with Jason called The Night Shift with all of the people that stayed up real late,” he recalled. “And there was a group of us every night that would stay up after everybody else would go to sleep, and Jason and I were part of that group, so we had a really good relationship.”
Kamu claimed that he ultimately scrapped the idea after believing Jason was coming after him.
“Unfortunately, he started to throw my name out, which obviously led to distrust,” he said. “And then our games just didn’t align.”
While he didn’t see Jason as an ally, Kamu told Us that he really liked the drag queen “on a human level.”
“I’m hoping that he and I can be friends after the show,” he said. “Well, now I guess I won’t see him again until finale night. So I’m hoping that when I see him, he and I can shake hands, he and I can hug, and we can be friends. Because for me, it was never personal. Everything was always game-related.”
During Kamu’s Head of Household reign, which ultimately sent Jason home, the athlete publicly called out the RuPaul’s Drag Race alum for playing both sides of the house during the infamous Tea Party incident.
“Because his game blew up during [Rick] Devens‘ nomination, right, and then he threw my name out, and that was kind of what started, like, the rift between us in the beginning. But then he apologized, we shook hands, everything was cool as water under the bridge,” Kamu said. “Then, when I was HoH, several people came up to me saying, “Hey, man, Jason’s saying this about you. He’s saying that about you.’ But then he would tell a different group of people something completely different.”
Kamu continued, “So with the Tea Party thing, it was more like, all right, let’s get everything out in the open. He’s saying different things to everybody. I want everybody to collectively hear what he has to say, and then they can make the judgment call as to whether or not what he’s saying lines up with what he told them privately.”
While many fans thought that the Tea Party argument went a little too far to personally target Jason, Kamu reiterated “it was all game-related.”
“I knew that he’s a great competitor, and if he were to stay that week, I knew that there was a good shot he would come after me, and I didn’t want him to have an army of people behind him also coming after me,” he said. “So if I could make sure that people did not trust him, if he were to stay in the house, then that would have been better for my game moving forward. But again, it was all game-related. It was never personal.”
Kamu also made headlines while in the Big Brother house for making what appeared to be anti-drag remarks. During a conversation with Devens — who was the mastermind behind Kamu’s eviction — Kamu reacted to seeing Drew Campbell wearing a set of unicorn pajamas.
“I said, ‘Bro, miss me with the drag stuff.’ Miss me. I’m still an MMA guy, and I have an image to uphold,” Kamu said on the live feeds in July.
While fans believed that Kamu’s comments were a diss toward Jason, the conversation was not directed at him. Following his eviction from the house, Kamu addressed the remarks and reiterated his love for Jason in multiple exit interviews.
“Jason and all those guys, they can dress however they wanna dress. And that’s cool with me. But I also wanna be able to dress the way that I wanna be able to dress and feel comfortable dressing without people putting pressure on me to dress a certain way either,” Kamu told Entertainment Weekly. “So I love Jason on a personal level, man. And he can do whatever he wants to do. And I just ask for that same respect, that’s all.”
Big Brother airs on CBS Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.
