Bringing out the receipts. Julie Chen put Big Brother houseguest Jack Matthews in the hot seat after his eviction on the Thursday, August 8, episode.
The fitness trainer, 28, came under fire several times during season 21 for making derogatory comments about his former housemates Kemi Fakunle and Isabella Wang. So, after Matthews’ castmates voted him out on Thursday, the TV host, 49, let him have it in front of the live studio audience. She started off by playing a montage of his controversial remarks about Kemi, 25.
“In recap, you called her bitch, you called her dog poop — you didn’t use the word ‘poop’ — and we just heard you say you wanted to ‘stomp a mud hole through her chest.’ Watching that now, what are your thoughts?” Julie asked once the video ended.
Jack responded, “OK, well, I will say that the ‘stomp the mud hole’ comment is based on something that Sam [Bledsoe] said last season when she was frustrated, and I don’t think there was any personal vendetta behind saying that. I think my statements were playful in a group of people. I do apologize for what I said, and that’s very sincere. I think Kemi was, and is, a great person.”
The Chicago native blamed his actions on being cooped up in the Big Brother house and on display for 24 hours a day via the live feeds.
“I wouldn’t say that I fully support the things that I said and the way that I said them,” he explained. “If I could take them back, I would, and I wish I could have articulated them in some other way possible. But it doesn’t take away the fact that I don’t think that Kemi is a wonderful person inside and outside of this house, as a person, absolutely.”
However, Julie didn’t stop there. She then played a clip of Jack referring to Isabella, 22, as “rice pudding.”
“Because Bella is Asian-American, and you made the pudding comment — ‘rice pudding’ — some people thought that was a derogatory statement about her ethnicity. What is your response to that?” she asked.
Jack immediately thanked the former The Talk moderator for “letting me be able to voice my opinion about that.” He then explained, “There was the slop thing going on and people were making different recipes earlier in that evening, mainly Tommy [Bracco] and Christie [Murphy]. And ‘rice pudding’ was spoken about and slop pudding. And so earlier in that evening, rice and slop pudding were going around, so Tommy bringing it up in that situation made me say it there. It had nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with her ethnicity whatsoever.”
After being evicted from the game earlier in the season, Kemi tweeted that she was “extremely disappointed and disgusted by the behavior” in the house,” adding that she is “horrified that this is now a part of my life story.” The show’s producers subsequently released a statement to Us Weekly, saying in part, “At times, the houseguests say things that we do not condone. We share some of the viewers’ concerns about inappropriate behavior and offensive comments, and producers have addressed specific incidents with the houseguests involved.”
Big Brother airs on CBS Sundays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
