Following the season 3 casting announcement, Olympic medalist Mirai Nagasu has become the first-ever Asian contestant to compete in the history of Celebrity Big Brother. Over the years, the flagship Big Brother series has featured quite a few notable Asian players. The two most noteworthy Asian houseguests on the show are BB4 winner Jun Song (who is Korean) and BB20 winner Kaycee Clark (who is Filipina). Despite losing America's Favorite Houseguest on BB23 to Tiffany Mitchell, Derek Xiao was also a huge fan-favorites on the show.
And yet, Asian representation on reality TV - or even television as a whole - has been very scarce over the years. Big Brother was always supposed to be a televised social experiment that reflects how society is looking like at a particular point in time, but most Asian cast members on the show have been historically ignored by fans and their costars or reduced to stereotypes in the final edit they received on the show.
Now, Mirai Nagasu is breaking ground in the Celebrity Big Brother season 3 cast as the first Asian contestant to ever appear on the spin-off. Mirai is a famous Olympic figure skater who was born in Arcadia, California. She is currently 28 years old and identifies as Japanese-American. In her track record as an athlete, Mirai is a seven-time medalist in the US Figure Skating Championship (one gold, two silver, two bronze, and two pewter medals). She also earned a bronze medal in the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Celebrity Big Brother isn't Mirai's first foray into reality TV, but it will certainly overshadow all the shows she's done before.
Prior to joining the Celebrity Big Brother cast, Mirai had a few experiences in reality television. For one, Mirai competed on Dancing With The Stars: Athletes season 26 back in 2018. Mirai was paired up with professional dancer Alan Bersten but was unfortunately eliminated in fifth place, tying with other Olympians such as Jennie Finch Daigle and Chris Mazdzer. A year later, Mirai appeared as a guest judge in a very memorable episode of RuPaul's Drag Race season 11. In that episode, Mirai sat in the judging panel alongside Olympian Adam Rippon and critiqued the drag queens for their performances in the "Draglympics" maxi challenge.
Mirai is now entering the CBB house with Drag Race staples Carson Kressley and Todrick Hall, but it should be noted that they weren't judges with Mirai during that particular episode. The only two CBB winners so far have been women, so there are many fans rooting for Mirai to snatch one more trophy for herself. Alas, only time will tell if this Olympic medalist has what it takes to play Big Brother.
Celebrity Big Brother season 3 is currently airing on CBS. Check out the show's full schedule here.