In an unexpected twist to tonight’s episode of Big Brother Canada, producers have ejected contestant Kyle Rozendal due to a “pattern of disturbing behavior.” Earlier in the week, production made the controversial decision to remove houseguest Jamar Lee.
On Tuesday, news spread that Jamar had been ejected by producers from the Big Brother Canada house due to statements he made during a house meeting which threatened other contestants. The confrontation was primarily between Jamar and houseguest Kyle Rozendal, and producers received a lot of backlash online for only removing Jamar. Fans and former houseguests shared their support online for Jamar, many criticizing the producers and calling the decision to remove Jamar racist, considering Kyle had made comments while in the house that could also be interpreted as threatening. The producers of Big Brother 21 last summer received a lot backlash for allowing houseguests who made racist comments to stay in the house, and it seems that Big Brother Canada producers were determined to not fall into the same trap. On Thursday night it was announced the producers had ejected a second houseguest from the show.
During Thursday's live episode, viewers were informed by host Arisa Cox that Kyle had been ejected from the game due to a "pattern of problematic behavior" (via Twitter.) In the same clip, Arisa says Jamar was removed from the game because his conduct during the house meeting "clearly broke house rules." Arisa also emphasized that "production's decision was based on things that were and were not shown on the live feeds" implying that viewers didn't see the entire altercation that resulted in Jamar's ejection. The decisions to remove both Kyle and Jamar were made "based on reviewing footage from the entire season" says Arisa and she reiterates that "while some of these issues were shown on the live feeds, certainly not all of them were." Arisa also adds at the end that production has decided to "hit a reset button" and explains that there will be no eviction ceremony happening since two contestants have gone home this week. You can watch the full explanation in the clip below:
Prior to this season of Big Brother Canada, no contestants had ever been ejected from the Canadian version of the series and only four houseguests had been ejected in 21 total seasons of the U.S. version. Of the four houseguests to be ejected previously, three were involved in physical altercations or were verbally threatening other guests, and one repeatedly disobeyed producers, then purposely destroyed her microphone. While Kyle may have been removed from the series due to a pattern of concerning behavior, it's hard to believe that part of production's decision wasn't motivated by the backlash they received online for their controversial decision. Fans online are happy that Kyle was ejected; however, many are saying it doesn't make up for Jamar's unfair removal in the first place.
With Kyle and Jamar having both left this week, Big Brother Canada season 8 has already lost 4 houseguests despite having only made it through one official eviction night. Following Nico Vera choosing to self-evict on day 5 and now two houseguests being ejected from the house, producers need to hit a reset button for the season rather than for just this week. Even though it took them being accused of being racist to make the decision, producers ultimately made the right decision in removing Kyle from the house. Hopefully all the houseguests will be able to move forward from here.
Source: Twitter