The Big Brother 24 viewers were shocked and disgusted when Daniel Durston verbally attacked Taylor Hale after a misunderstanding between Nicole Layog and Taylor, and now Nicole revealed that she had asked Daniel not to confront Taylor, but he did anyway. During the Festie Bestie twist, Nicole paired herself with Taylor in order to use herself as a pawn to evict Taylor. At one point in the game, when Nicole was struggling with her feelings about manipulating Taylor, she was crying. Taylor, who did not know why Nicole was upset, attempted to comfort her by telling her that if she ever felt that she had to "tap out of the fight, don't even consider me."
Although Taylor actually meant that Nicole should not push herself too hard for Taylor's sake as her Festie Bestie partner, Nicole took it to mean that Taylor was passive aggressively telling her to quit the game. She was very offended and told her final two partner Daniel about it. When an enraged Daniel confronted Taylor, he incorrectly blamed her for Paloma Aguilar's self-eviction, saying, "The thing you did to Paloma? You're trying to do to her [Nicole]? You can [expletive] right off. You don't think America's watching all that?" Nicole later called Taylor "passive aggressive" and "rude" to her face. In the end, this confrontation led to the formation of The Leftovers alliance and Daniel's mistake of backdooring Nicole from the game.
In an interview with Parade, Nicole revealed that she had asked Daniel not to say anything to Taylor because she was just venting to him about their conversation. Nicole previously had said that she hated past male houseguests who spoke to women in a negative way, but Daniel did the exact same thing to Taylor, and he was her closest ally. When asked how Nicole balanced that, she said, "I can't speak for Daniel. I realized in this game that you can't control somebody's actions. Period." Nicole went on to say that when she told him about Taylor, "my intentions were not for him to obviously react in that way. I didn't realize that that was going to affect him the way it did when I walked out of the room. I was venting. I did ask him not to say anything. But he did. And so here we are."
Parade then revealed that while Nicole and Daniel were talking about Taylor, Taylor was asking Monte to pray with her for Nicole's mom's health. Nicole said, "I feel bad, and it breaks my heart. I never wanted her to feel that way... I take ownership for the things that I've said." Nicole said that she made the decisions "to use [Taylor] as a shield for strategy and try to keep myself safe by using somebody who wasn't liked in the house. And I take full responsibility for that." Nicole said that she is now "cheering for Taylor" and that she feels like they could have a future as friends outside of the house. Nicole shared, "I have nothing but love for her and respect for her. I was a fan of hers in Week One. But I let other people's feelings cloud my better judgment. And for that reason, I'm sitting outside of the house."
Although Nicole did not seem to mean for the argument between Daniel and Taylor to escalate, she laid the groundwork for it by choosing to take what Taylor said to her in a negative way. She jumped at the chance to turn people against Taylor. She also berated Taylor after Daniel did, instead of trying to calm the situation. However, her actions backfired and led to her own eviction. It is nice to see that Nicole is holding herself accountable for her words and actions during the game. Hopefully, Nicole can learn from her mistakes in the Big Brother house.
Big Brother airs Sundays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EDT and Thursdays at 9 p.m. EDT on CBS.
Source: Parade