Cody Calafiore, the 23-year-old ex-soccer player/sales associate from New Jersey, won the final Head of Household competition, giving him the power to choose whom he sat next to in the Final 2: his fellow Hitman, Derrick Levasseur, or Victoria Rafaeli. Instead of making a big splash, Calafiore remained loyal to his Hitmen alliance, choosing to take Levasseur — who would go on to win the $500,000 in a 7-2 vote — a move Calafiore later said was a decision he was more comfortable living with. Following Wednesday's finale, Calafiore, winner of $50,000, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about whether he regrets taking Derrick to the Final 2, his controversial "flirtmance" with Christine and being blindsided by Team America and Derrick's secret. When The Hitmen formed on Day 2, the plan was to make it to the Final 2. Did you think at the time that both you and Derrick would make it to the end?
When we linked up on Day 2, it seemed so cool to be part of something like that watching the show and being a fan of it and being linked up into something that we had linked a name to because we had lasted a couple of weeks. As we got to the middle of the season, we were like, Wow, we made it pretty far together and no one's ever suspected us. It got to the point where if we didn't win the competitions we could end up going home. A lot of things fell our way and next thing you knew, we were sitting in the Final 3 with Derrick and I competing in the final HOH together. It was like, Wow, I couldn't believe that 96 days ago, when we linked up together, that we would make it to the Final 2.
You had the power to decide whom you would be sitting next to after winning the final HOH competition. Why pick Derrick over Victoria, who seemed to be easier to win over? Honestly it never crossed my mind to backstab the guy that I owed so much of my game to and who I put all my trust in for an entire season. I felt like that would wreck the character I tried to build in myself to cross somebody who I built a game relationship with and who I trusted a lot of my decisions with. Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk so much, but he was literally my best friend and I could go to him if something was bothering me or if people were getting on my nerves, so crossing someone like that would not have been a decision I would have been able to deal with outside of the house. What was it about Derrick that made you trust him so fully?
Early on in the game, when the whole Bomb Squad started, it literally was said right to me, "We were questioning you because of how you were acting with the girls." And that was on the second day being in the Big Brother house. And I thought, "I got questioned on the second day when everyone was interacting with a bunch of brand-new people?" For me, that was why the Bomb Squad was out for me from the start. Derrick came to me and was like, "We're going to ride that out, but you're going to be my ride-or-die guy. We're going to stick till the end." That was huge. Seeing the kind of a person he was in the game — he could have ended up doing some things that could have made me question him a little bit, but he never did. Further in the game, it made the trust even more. And when questionable stuff was going down, I never was going to question my right-hand man in the game. Having that trust in somebody, I feel like is difficult to get in the Big Brother house, and when you have it it's something you don't let go of.
There was a moment on the feeds where you realized that you may not have the votes to win against Derrick in the Final 2. Were you toying with cutting Derrick at all in the Final 3? I thought a lot about it, thinking that I had a bitter jury coming toward me because I had crossed a lot of them, but honestly at the end of the day, mid-season I even said this to Derrick, "I think it's going to be tough for me to make it any further because I have the trust of every houseguest and sooner or later people are going to get crossed and I'm going to be dragged out in the dirt." Getting to the end and having to cross everybody, I knew it was going to be extremely difficult, but I wasn't going to take a cop-out and not take a guy who I made it that far with. I was really happy with my decision.
Could you have won over Victoria? A lot of people didn't get the conversation that was had with a bunch of the guys. If Victoria got to the end, she would have gotten some spiteful votes and maybe pulled it out. This is Big Brother, absolutely. If it happened that way and I lost to her, that would have been devastating that I sent home the guy that I worked with the entire time. Losing to Derrick, who is a huge player in the game, that's something I can live with. Derrick had a couple of secrets that he kept from you. Yeah, just a couple. What was your initial reaction to the Team America reveal and finding out Derrick's involvement? Team America was tough because knowing that he was winning that much money. After the jury asked their questions, I felt like a lot of what they felt was masterminding fell on [Derrick] when I felt like it was a huge duo that we had. Finding out all that stuff, I was like, Dang, this kid is going to win a lot of money. I thought the votes weren't going to swing my way and I thought, Crap, not only did I just hand him $50K for bringing him to the Final 2, he's about to smoke it with $500K on top of all that money. It was just brutal. It was a lot to take in at once.
No comments:
Post a Comment