‘Big Brother’ winner Ashley Hollis reveals how she crushed final jury speech

She did not win a single Head of Household all season long — until the very final day. And that’s the only one she needed.

Ashley Hollis was crowned the winner of Big Brother when the season 27 jury awarded her $750,000 by an overwhelming vote of 6-1 over runner-up Vince Panaro. Even though Ashley had not won a single competition since the Veto contest in week 1, the strength of her game came from the fact that she never needed to — building strong bonds with the rest of the jury. That was a remarkable turnaround from a player who appeared poised to be the first person evicted out of the house.

Her home run pitch to the jury occurred when she contrasted herself with Vince by noting, “To me, a Big Brother winner is someone who turns their enemies into allies, not their allies into enemies.” The jury agreed, giving her the victory.

How confident was Ashley before facing the jury? Are there any votes she got that surprised her? And how does she think she would have done in the final two against Morgan? We spoke to the newly crowned Big Brother champion shorty after her victory to get the scoop on all that and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First off, congratulations!

ASHLEY HOLLIS: Thank you so much. I’m in shock!

You say you’re in shock. I’m sure you were doing jury math in your head leading up to this, so what did you think the vote was going to be before the jury Q&A started?

Oh, I knew I was gonna beat Vinny because I knew I was gonna hit with my speech and my questions, and I knew he was gonna get nervous. But I’m more in shock about winning the final HOH. When I won the final HOH and I beat Morgan, the competition beast, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I might win this game!” That was why I was so in shock. I got all four questions right in a row and then I was in shock when Julie stopped the game and was like, “It’s over. Ashley won!” I was like, “What?”

You looked like on some of those answers that you were a little tentative. How worried were you when you were holding up those answers?

Only the fourth one, I was unsure. The first three, I was actually very sure. I was just nervous in general, because I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is my BB life. This is the difference between $750,00 and $75,000. Because I knew even if Morgan took me — which I don’t know what she really was going to do — I know I would’ve gotten second place.

She was going to take you.

Wow.

You say you were confident you were going to beat Vinny, but it was 6-1, Ashley. Which votes did you think you might not have?  

I didn’t think I would have Lauren. And I was unsure about Kelley, just because me and Kelley weren’t super close in the house. Actually, we were at odds most of the time during the season. So I wasn’t sure about Kelley and Lauren. I was really surprised to get both of their votes.

I think the line of the night is when you answered Ava’s question by saying “To me, a Big Brother winner is someone who turns their enemies into allies, not their allies into enemies, which the counterpart next to me did.” Tell me about working on your speech and figuring out what you wanted to say.

Oh my gosh, I worked on that speech for days — trying to come up with combativeness too, if I was sitting next to Morgan or if I was sitting next to Vinny. And for me, I really just knew that Vinny’s social game wasn’t that strong. He made some really bad moves in the game. He led a lot of people on and gave them hope even though he knew he was going to go another way. So I knew I wanted to emphasize that.

And being an attorney, you have to predict what the other person’s arguments are going to be and already have a strategy and a counter-argument to whatever their argument is going be. And so I knew he was going to try to say he had a strong social game and he only lied when he had to, but I’m like, “You turned a lot of allies into enemies.” And I feel like in my game, I did the exact opposite.

Towards the end of the game I started working with Keanu, even working with Vinny. I mean, I was targeting him and he was targeting me the first five weeks, and week five, he targeted Rachel and I to knock us out of that HOH, And then by week six, I was in alliance with him.

Did you get nervous or worried at all when Julie kept asking you to wrap up your jury answers?

Yes, I was super nervous because some of the juicier stuff could have been at the end. So then I don’t even remember what I said, but I just tried to summarize what the points were in my head and just quickly be like, “Okay, I’m just leaving it all here on the table.”

You mentioned Morgan, I told you she would’ve brought you to the end. How do you think you do in the final two against Morgan?

Bad. [Laughs] I mean, Morgan not only played her game, she played Vinny’s game. She controlled a lot of Vinny’s moves, which is something that I saw happening from week five, which is why I wanted to attach myself to Morgan and Vinny, because Morgan and I were very close. We got very close, we became genuine best friends in the house. And so I knew as long as Morgan and I were good, Vinny and I would always be good because Vinny was gonna do what Morgan told him to.

And that is what happened week after week. And so my gut instincts were right. I don’t know if it shows this, but week six, it was a potential that it was gonna be Morgan versus Mickey. At the time, I was closer to Mickey, but on a game level, I knew Morgan was better for my game because two is better than one. And Morgan and Vinny were a package deal. I was in a duo. So what better way than to merge the duos and have protection for more people?

You won the very first Veto competition, and then not a single comp after that until tonight. How does that happen?

I don’t know! I thought it was gonna be a comp beast week one! I was like, “Oh my gosh. I won my very first Veto I competed in!” And then it tanked. My only confession is that the only comp I ever threw was the double eviction. I saw that I was getting really close, and I was doing way better than everyone else. And I looked around and I’m like, “I know my noms would be Keanu and Morgan, but if either of them come down, I will have to show my cards.”

Because the only three people to put up were Ava, Morgan, and Vinny. And I was working with all three of them, so I knew that I was in trouble. And so when I saw that Morgan was catching up to me, I did whatever I could. I threw it a little bit harder than I needed to. [Laughs] But every other comp I just sucked at, quite frankly — except for the only ones that mattered with the final HOH, and I won that one.

After you won that final HOH, we saw you say to Morgan, “Hey, can I talk to you real quickly?” But then we didn’t see what happened. So what did you say to her in that moment where you pulled her aside?

So I did pull her, and I basically was just like, “Will you be mad at me if I don’t go your way? And she was like, “You have to do what’s best for your game.” And I just was like, “Okay.” And I knew what I was going to do, but I’m an empath. So my soul was a little bit crushed to be the one to have to evict her — someone who’s kept me safe literally time and time again. And so it felt really bad, honestly.

I knew it was a $750,000 move, so I didn’t feel that bad, but the impact on me, just on a human level, I knew how much this game meant to her. She was obviously the front-runner to win this game, which is why I had to evict her. And so it felt bad on a human level, because in the house you really do get really attached to these people and that is probably one of the harder parts of the game.

Tell me about the lightbulb finally going off on part two of the final HOH competition, when you realized that you and Vince were both reading the clue wrong.

I was extremely behind in the competition, so by the time I finished the puzzle and got to the card moment, I looked at the thing and I just assumed it was gonna be days, because it was numbers. And so, yes, I read the card out loud, but I didn’t read that card for comprehension. I just read it out loud and got to work on the days and memorizing and everything.

And it got to a point where I changed my answer multiple times. I knew I had the days correct. I was like, “This has to be right, so something’s wrong here.” So I’m like, “Let me reread the card,” because I couldn’t even remember what the card said. Quite frankly, I didn’t remember. I pick it up immediately, I read it, and it says order. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this was the easiest password to crack ever! And we’ve been spending so long counting all the days.” And I knew it and I got it right the first try.  

What was it like to share this moment with your family there?

I was absolutely shocked. I saw their faces. They were like quite literally right in the front and they looked so happy. I mean, they were beaming with joy. They’re so proud. And my dad was like, “I knew it. I knew when you won that HOH that you were gonna win the game. I knew you were gonna make the right decision and pick the right person.” He just was like, “I’ve been watching live feeds all season! And you clocked a lot of people and you got a lot of it right.” And he’s like, “So I knew that you knew not to take Morgan”. But he loves Morgan and he goes, “Ashley, I love you. You’re my daughter, but you aren’t gonna beat Morgan.” I go, “I know.”

What are you going to do with the money?

Well, firstly, I am very good with my money being that I’m an attorney, so I’m definitely not going to spend it. I’m going to live within my means, how I’ve been living this whole time. I want to take my whole family on a trip. I’ll definitely give a good chunk of my money to my parents, just because they’ve given everything to me my entire life.

They’ve supported all of my dreams, all my ambitions, whether it was competitive dance when I was younger, going to modeling and casting calls and acting and all the things. So I really want to pay them back for everything that they’ve done for me. And then the rest I’m just gonna save and maybe buy a house in a few years and do all the adult grown-up things. I mean, I’m 25, so I’m still really young. But yeah, I’d love to make a really good investment and I’m thinking in a home.

I’ve saved the most important question for last. How long a shower are you going to take when you get home?

Oh my gosh, I’m gonna take an hour shower — just for all of the haters. And may I just say I was very satisfied as soon as I walked out and the show was over and I talked to Julie Chen. She goes, “And by the way, your shower wasn’t even that long!” [Laughs] She was like, “I think it was like 30 or 40 minutes.” I was like, “Thank you, Julie! I’ve been trying to tell these people all season I didn’t take a two-hour shower, but they didn’t believe me.” So I felt very satisfied hearing Julie have my back.

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