‘Big Brother’ Host Julie Chen Reveals Her Season 20 Winner Prediction

It’s two weeks into Season 20 of Big Brother, but host Julie Chen thinks she has a sense of who will emerge from the house victorious.

“I’m gonna say Tyler,” she told Entertainment Tonight in a new interview, referring to 23-year-old lifeguard Tyler Crispen, who won this season’s first Head of Household.

“He’s been playing the game, and he’s been playing it well, and he has no enemies,” Chen added, noting that the way he’s playing as of now shouldn’t affect his game going forward.

“He’s likable, he’s believable, he’s playing all sides of the house, but not in this unlikable, slimy way,” she said. “He’s doing it in a smart way … he also has side, like, final two deals with, like, four people? And I think only one of the people are in the Level 6 alliance! So, he has his bases covered, and no one was bent out of shape because of his HoH nominations, and he didn’t have to nominate another person, because Power of Veto was not used.”

“He’s keeping his lies straight,” she continued of Crispen. “He’s a lot smarter — you know, when he first moved in, I was like, oh, he’s Sean Penn’s character, Spicoli, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But that’s not the case at all, and I think, outside of the house, he strikes me as someone who’s a good person. Anyone who wants to save the oceans cannot be a bad guy.”

If Crispen doesn’t take home the prize, Chen guessed it could be Sam Bledsoe, the 27-year-old welder who has been forced to spend most of her time on the show so far as a robot, due to a punishment she was handed down after placing last in the show’s first challenge.

“She’s been holding her own, and she hasn’t even been in the house as herself!” Chen said. “Now, we know she’s good at competitions. This woman is a welder, she’s fearless. She’s not too precious to get in there. She’s a fighter, so she’s definitely one to watch.”

“She was so good in the competition [that aired Wednesday], the Power of Veto,” she added. “Snakes, no problem. Freezing cold water, one-handed, nose-plug swim? She was great, and the girls were like, ‘She’s a beast.’ So, on the one hand you’re like, ‘Oh! I respect that. Now do I want to target her for it, or do I want to get in an alliance?’ We shall see. She’s certainly likable.”

And even though Bledsoe had a little breakdown from feeling ostracized by her robot punishment, Chen thinks there was also a positive side to Sam-bot, one that earned her a power app from the BB App store.

“If she wasn’t a robot for half the time in the house, I’m not so sure she would’ve been the most trending houseguest,” Chen said. “Because most trending isn’t about most popular, and least trending isn’t about most disliked. Everyone was buzzing about her because she got saddled with that.”

Bledsoe ended up choosing the bonus life app, which allows her to get a chance to return to the house if she is eliminated during Thursday’s live elimination.

“That means, if [Thursday], the majority of the house vote to evict her, she will have to immediately stand up and announce that she is the one who was trending the most and shows something called ‘bonus life,’” Chen explained. “What that means [is] … she has to successfully compete — not against another person, ’cause there’s no one else to get back in — she has to complete a challenge during the live show, something I will present her with, and if she can complete that challenge and win the game I present to her, then she goes back downstairs and rejoins everybody and nobody goes home.”

As for where Bledsoe goes when she is turned into the robot?

“She is in a little room across from the soundstage [where the Big Brother house was built], isolated by herself,” Chen revealed. “And then, when she sleeps at night, she is off-campus … somewhere else, by herself. By the way, it’s probably a vacation.”

“It also takes a target off her back,” she added. “She’s not in there long enough to fight with someone or really annoy someone.”

Big Brother airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET and Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.