Tamra and Dan interview the winner of Big Brother Season 24... Taylor Hale!
Hi everybody. I'm Tamra Judge and I'm Dan Geesling and you're listening to Talking a Big Game. Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of Talking a Big Game with myself, Tamer Judge and Dan Geesling.
Very excited to be here as always, Tamer, I.
Know we're here in the studio at iHeart and.
I'm a little more excited today.
I know you're jumping off your chair. You have a fellow big brother in the house.
Let's can you you intro? You do such a good job on the intro.
Oh my gosh. Taylor Hale Taylor is a reality TV personality best known for appearance on the US version of Big Brother. Taylor Hall's One Big Brother season twenty four, making history is the first black woman to win a regular US season on the show. She also won America's Favorite House Guest, made her the first contestant to win both prizes.
That doesn't get old, doesn't it. That's like cool, that's never gonna change like that.
Wow, you always have that scoreboard looks pretty good for me, very very good.
It was only that, but you were involved in beauty pageants. You were pround Miss Michigan and USA twenty twenty one and competed in Miss USA in twenty twenty one. Were you won Miss Congeniality?
Oh and I'm going to steal this one? Most importantly, in my opinion, the all time leading is cash winner in Big Brother with eight hundred thousand dollars hundred thousand.
Dollars, one hundred thousand.
Now, how old were you when you won eight hundred thousand dollars.
Girl twenty seven? It was only two years ago?
Okay, so can you tell us what you did with your money?
I spent it all on hooker's and cocaine. Obviously.
Obviously that's like something my son would say. He says that to me all the time, hookers.
Would I be responsible when I can just blow all the cash? Now I'm kidding. I paid the taxes number one. Immediately, I was like, okay, everyone asked me, what are you gonna do with the money? Talk to me after the taxes. So paid those taxes, and then I took half of it and put half in the savings, and the other half I paid bills I need to pay and what was rest from that? I was like, okay, this is my fun fun. So I bought a mustang. I took my mom on trips.
That's amazing. Like sometimes you hear like reality winners or even like lottery winners.
Even in Big Brother, Like you can take the list of Big Brother people be like you know exactly that they like they.
Waste to blow it all, blow it all, blow it all.
So I'm super excited to have Taylor because I've been unplugged from the show. But when Taylor won, I'm like I tuned in because number one, she's from Michigan, but number two, she went through a lot of adversity in the house, and it's like like there's always you watch Big Brother people in adversity, they fold, they fold, they fold, but you you fought through it all. Wasn't easy. And then on top of that, you have this iconic speech and they're really like, not no shade to anyone but the Big Brother. There hasn't been some big moments in a while, So for you to come and take that and do what you did. I always as like a huge fan of the show. I admired that because like that's why I watched. I don't watch for people to build their social media following. I want to see people like go through stuff, not quit and come out on the other end. So let me ask you this Taylor being thrown into the Big Brother house and you had a lot of adversity, what do you attribute your success to in that season and how you made it through on the other end.
There's a handful of things, right, So the why is the easiest reason. I was like, I'm I have seen actually lit'sten backtrack a little bit. So I was not a fan of Big Brother in the conventional sense. I was not watching every year. I had no real working knowledge of Big Brother. I'd seen Celebrity the season that happened just before me, and I watched season twenty three just because like, sorry, I'm work for black people. I was popping up on my Twitter feed and I was like, Okay, the cookout is happening, and they ensured the first black person to win Big Brother ever, So I went in thinking, Okay, well, I'm gonna get the first black woman to win this game because I've seen them just get like dragged and attacked so many times, and it's really unfair to have a show that's been on network TV for twenty years at that time and not have a winner that looks like me, doesn't make any sense. Then, when I got into the game and all these things were happening to me, and I was ostracized and bullied and the whole list of things you want to say, I realized this game is going to have an end date, and it's either going to end with me removing myself or it's going to end with me standing under a reign of confetti. It is not my job to tell myself no. It's literally everybody else's job in that house to tell me no. But I'm going to be the one person that refuses to give in to anybody else's pressure. So that end date was going to come along whether I wanted to be either or not, and I was going to refuse to not be there.
But where does that come from? For you to be able to do that with a bunch of strangers under the scrutiny of twenty four to seven cameras, knowing there's a lot of money on the line, Like that's not like, oh, you bump into someone in the road and it's inconsequential like this is. There's a lot on the line. So for you, how were you able to do that in that moment? Where do you trace that back to.
You know, there's a handful things. I've always kind of been a resilient person, honestly, going back to my parents' worse is this therapy right now? Even you know, my parents got divorced and I was like, how old were you when they got to middle school?
Okay, so important yet eighth grade?
Yeah, but my mom telling me in the car it was so dramatic. It was raining. She picked me up from school and she goes, you know, you know, your dad's divorcing me, and it was sad. But I remember thinking, well, that's y'all's problem, not mine. Like your divorce is your relationship. That doesn't have any real impact on it.
You al had a good head on your shoulders, very secure.
Very secure or just a little bit too detached from the world, either way you want to look at it.
Nothing get two D. But did you see it coming? Were you like shocked or do you like, ah, this marriage isn't like what I think a marriage should be.
Maybe more so that my parents weren't super lovey, dovey and affectionate, but I also never saw them argue or fight or be me.
I was the same yea with my parents and they ended up divorcing when I was like twenty five or seven or something like that.
Twenty okay, twenty five or twenty seven, Yeah, seven or twenty five.
I can't twenty five, twenty seven years old. I can't remember exactly what it was. But yeah, they never fought, they never argued, they never touched, they never It was just like, I just that's how it was supposed to be.
Yeah, and I'm an only child, so all that I just carried. It's like, all right, that's y'all's business, not mine. I have my own life to live. So it's like if anyone has an issue, even in the present day, if you have a problem with me, that's your problems one sided. It's not on me. And I'll keep it pushing until I get what I need to get.
Yeah, to quote my good friend and your friend as well, Candice Dillard, not today, Satan.
Not today, say not today.
Same so you So you said, that's like the first time where you kind of like if you could get through that Big brother was easy or like, how would you draw from that to get through Big Brother? Oh?
I mean, pageants definitely play a part in that as well. There's we're all reality TV personalities, media personalities. When you are in the pageant world as what I call a triple z list celebrity, a mag a quadruple z list celebrity, there are literal message boards dedicated to tearing down your looks, your weight, how you walk, how you talk, how you'll compete at Miss you say, if you have a shot at winning and going to Miss Universe. And it gets even worse when you're a real contender to compete at the national international scale. So when you are Susy Jane Joe from Minnesota and you win a state crown, and you get two thousand followers, and you have more eyes on you than the average girl in your state, and you have people just tearing you down every single day and literally pitting you against fifty other of the most beautiful women in the country, you either learn how to have a thick skin or you crack crack, and my skin just got thicker because of course I had racism. I was the first dark skinned woman to win Miss Michigan USA in like fifteen years at that point, So you know, the racism will come out, the trolls will come out, people will tell you don't deserve what you literally earned from a team of middle aged people. But who am I to say anything like this is something that I earned, fought for and trained for, and I'm not gonna let other people rip away what I want from me.
And that's that's like the feeling because I just I watched the finale, but I'm watching you walk out. I'm like, she do didn't give it an f like it was just like all these people hated her and then they just gave her the game because of the speech, and like, you fought your tail off and she didn't like you could care. I felt like you couldn't even be bothered.
It was just like, wait, tell me about this speech. Hear this speech?
She like so typically, I mean, it's a speech you give. It's you against me against you, and everyone's watching Traders when.
We're around and we're you know, you're on the chop.
You have to give a speech too soon, You have to keep gave a speech.
Well, we'll talk about that.
Convince all these people that you just like voted out, shoved them out of the game. You got to convince them to give you the game. And she came in and it was like it was kind of like you've never seen like pageant delivery. But it was like well thought out and there were no cracks in what you're saying. I'm like, you're not damn you know, and like and this is kind of the reality we live in. I don't know who you beat. I don't remember second, like you just you don't remember that. And I think that's the mark of like someone who put their mark on the show. And and you know, so coming from that and now okay, which I didn't know you were in California, Like I texted, You're like, hey, are we call them? You're like, yeah, I can come by the studio. I'm like, it's awesome. So you've won the show and then you decompress, which is a whole nother thing, like you know, getting your phone back everything.
I can't imagine what.
What was the most shocking to you after you had the success of winning the show, like when you got out.
Probably the reach that The Big Brother twenty four had on a lot of people. Like I said, I had a very surface level knowledge of the game. I only started watching old episodes because I was being recruited to go on the show. So I was like, all right, let me binge watch this and see what I'm getting into. But outside of that, I didn't know the game, and as a regular person, Big Brother is not something that penetrates the general public often unless there's like a racism TMZ article coming out genuinely. So, when I got out of the house, I got my phone back, I have X amount of followers, and I have little adoration in ways that I just didn't expect what happened, because you don't know what the world thinks about you when you're feeling quick on Twitter, Yeah, whatever it's called right now, I just call it twitter. His mom ated Twitter. I'm gon call it twitter me too. So I think once I saw Time Magazine wrote an article, when I saw a Rolling Stone bard An article, that's when I was like, Okay, there's a real cultural that's not that's not typical Big Brother, that's not typical reality TV, honestly, and so when I was like, Okay, there's something really important that happened here that other people were able to learn from, grow from, capitalize on, that's when I felt like, Okay, the impact is more than just the silly thing I did over the summer. It's it's beyond what I could have expected. So, you know, then you get into how do people see me as a human or an impenetrable role model that you put me on a pedestal. When you are that high on a pedestal, you have so much farther to fall and leading up or trying to be that expectation so often, because my when mint a lot of stuff for a lot of different people, it's really really scared not to follow that trip of oh my god, am I letting people down by not always being perfect all the time? But you know, I think that's the beauty a big Brother. You just try to you don't even try. You are forced to peel back at all the layers. People see you at your most vulnerable, literally half naked walking into the bathroom. So like, you just kind of hope that people will continue to follow and understand you as a whole human being and not just a character on TV show.
Now, what was harder, Big Brother or Pageants?
Probably Big Brother at least you're cut off from the world. No, it was definitely harder Pageants. Like you have your support system, it's a one time thing. The competition happens one time. Big Brother, You're just kind of flailing a log.
When were you in the Big Brother House?
My game was eighty two days? Oh, help me told you about sequester? No, oh, we were sequestered for My sequester was twelve days before the game.
So what you did before Traders?
That sequesters and yeah, and I was ready to jump out of my skin twelve days.
Yeah.
What kind of room are you actually in?
What kind of rooms?
Is it just a hotel?
A hotel room by an airport? Yeah?
Okay, so that.
Time is long.
Yeah, Teddy had to.
Do that as well when she did Big Brother and I feel like.
It was the exact same hotel, probably like a week.
Maybe I think she said she had to do that, but I'm like, oh my god, No, I thought it was just because of COVID, Like they wanted to make sure you didn't have COVID, so they you know, kept you in a room for a week and tested you.
I didn't know.
It was like, why did they do that?
That's an additional thing? So the real reason was your mind? Well yeah, basically, but honestly, the whole premise of Big Brothers that you don't know anybody else going into the house, so you're cut off from the world and as people start getting what we call kidnapped. They literally call it kidnapping. Like there was a tex next that I wasn't supposed to see that popped up on an Apple car play while we were driving to the destination. I said, BB twenty four kidnapping. I was like, I'm going, I made it.
You're educating Tamran like big brother because she has like the bird's eye view, but you're getting.
You gotta know the fun behind the scenes things. So, yeah, my kidnapping happened. And everybody gets kidnapped kind of in different waves, so as you get cut off. The whole point is that you don't want people being leaked on Twitter or online and seeing what else is going on.
So the Traders you get murdered.
Yeah, but you had. We're not talking about it, but I would recommend doing it.
So would you consider doing Traders in a heartbeat? I would love to. I would have loved to do the season that just happened, But I am.
Did I hear that possibly they were talking to you about.
Doing I mean I think it's just a I mean you're shoeing.
Yeah, I mean the call happened, and I would have loved to, but I'm still under my contract with with CBS PARAMOUNTLA.
I think that happened to quite a few people.
Does that end because two years like this some years two years, two years September twenty fifth, twenty twenty four.
Ass for two years.
You try to reach out to CBS and be like.
Hey, can you know how many times?
Nothing?
I mean, you know, I understand it. It's a contract. I've signed contracts before. But I'm just saying, if you want to use me, use me. Yeah, you want to be the contract.
I mean you know what if they use you, they're going to put another year on you.
They brought her back in for the Christmas Reindeers game.
That Christmas contract ended three months after, but my twenty four contract was still is still going.
I can't see that ours was a year. I don't And that's that's my thing with CBS is like you build a Taylor Hill, like you got her, go go use her, go use that and instead of like now you're on a shelf and then you can't do anything else. That's my only issue. Sorry, CBS is like that's fine, then go like Peak is going to take you and Peacock.
Is going to be clearly a start and people are in line waiting to nab ask.
So you get off Big Brother and like, there's a there's a transition period, right, So you went from like, Okay, you're known in the pageant community. Now, hey, this big thing happened. How have you been able to process? Okay, like you were you said you were like triple zalist, so wherever you are now, but like you're not double Zealas, how do you keep that in perspective? And like, now what do you want to do with it?
Oh, I'm a realist to the core. So like, look, I'm not Ah, I'm not Zundeya, I'm not Angela Jolie, I'm not an a less celebrity. I am a. I've elevated to a double Zealiss celebrity now okay, and it's fun and it's exciting, cool stuff to do, really cool stuff. I got the house, and Ley sent me to the Super Bowl. I got to go to Greece on a ship called the Resilient Lady. Resiliency was the theme of my final speech. So there was some really awesome things that came from this eighty two day period. But now I get to pivot into doing entertainment news. I'm doing exit interviews for Big Brother for Entertainment tonight, which is like, oh, congratulations, And it's just a dream. It's an absolute dream.
What's next for you? Is there something? Is there a goal that you have?
I want to be the go to person for entertainment news. That's when my lifelong dream. When I was in high school, people ask me what I wanted to do, and I was like, I'm going to go to d C. And I'm going to be a correspondent.
To the boys. Right now, everything I see that happening.
I was a big political junkie. I'm like, oh my god, this election cycle. I'm just so tuned in right now too.
Did you go to college for that?
I went to college to study journalism, but George Washington in DC, So that's where the politically minded aspect comes in.
But I told a very difficult school to get into, but.
Great, and that's why they targeted me. But I jumped around within that school, all the different schools at g W. And I remember my academic advisor said, too, if you want to graduate on time, you have one major to choose from, which was organizational sciences, which sounds made up, but it's I don't even know what is that sounds like a lie, like a BS major, but it's essentially business like which worked in the house.
So you've recently moved to LA Is that what made what sparked that move for you? And how has it been?
There's gonna be a star, dance may be a star. There's no entertainment newswork in Michigan. And I love Michigan. I would like to buy a house in Michigan, but for me to actually be available to pick up last when it calls like this and show off.
Did you ever think about moving to New York?
No. I interned when I was in New York for Essence magazine when I was in college, and I get it. The area I was in was near Times Square. Who wants to live near Times Square? Day Exactly?
I don't even want to walk through Times Square. No, I have to in a couple of weeks because I'm taking my son and his girlfriend to New York and she's never been, so I'm like.
Just make sure you get like the on brand sponge job, not the off brand with the eye. Now you know those things are scary. I did think about New York scary. It's terrifying. But hey, you know what, y'all love New York. Y'all love New York. I know you love New York. But living there was like living in dog years to me. And I never ever thought that I'd be an LA girl. But when I got off the show, my friend Toddrick, he opened up his home and I got to be in his master bedroom for like this beautiful ten million dollar mansion for like a month and a half just decompressing.
It was real nice.
He gave me the carration. No literally, I was like, I don't know, maybe I do like LA.
So can I ask you that?
So?
Like did you feel like how did you meet this guy? Was there any like what's going on? Like you as a father, I'm like, okay, my daughter is staying in a ten million dollar mansion and just got keys of the car, Like like what's the cat? I mean, like, how did what happened? Because I'm from Michigan, I'm staying in Michigan. But that didn't shock you. You're like, oh, yeah, that probably happens, but what is the story with that?
I had the same mindset as you, right because the season before me, season twenty four six, people from the season. They all stayed at his house also, and so I think, what you have an established.
But like why, like what what is Is he just a big fan or something massive fan.
Of Big Brother? And he was on Celebrity Big Brother at the season right before mine, so he's in the community. He's a big fan of it. And then when you.
I think he was on with Teddy was gonna Yeah.
It was two years ago now, two years ago.
Yeah, Teddy was on that exactly.
Yeah, he was final yep, I have heard ye the bed.
A different Big Brother.
Only celebrities can do that always any bed, anytime ever.
That's good to know. So it was kind of like he was pre screened and you're like yeah. For me, I was like, okay, did you feel like you owed him anything?
You know?
I not in that way, but I'm just saying like he's gay, so.
Very gay. No, and the is like, I owe you friendship. But it never felt like a tit for tat. You gave me your room, so I owe you my friendship. It's just like general gratitude. Just a very very kind person and you never know what do you expect from people, but when you have the vetting from people that you respect on the season before you and then you have your own experience. It's like, okay, I can check Frock with this. He had this giant finale night party. It's happened the past three years in a row, I'd say. So, I snuck out of my hotel room on finale night. I wasn't supposed to be out, but my best security at your door. They didn't have security at my door, but they did have my room key. Okay, so I couldn't tap in rount if I wanted to.
But what I did.
I called my best friend who was in town. She came to my room and I took like the little card stock that they have on the desk next to your bed, slid it in the door. So I went in lock and we got to Uber and went over to the party crafty and that's what. Yeah, I did not sleep that night. We went straight from the party till six am, and I was back at the CBS a lot to do the talk, same hair and makeup.
What do you do you have any like photos in your head from winning? Like is there? Like can you close your eyes and be like all right, I'll remember this when I'm on my deathbed.
Oh, yeah, yeah, there's you know how this feels when you're sitting in those final two seats and I was holding hands with the person and I was sitting final too.
It was it Sorry, sorry, no, that's okay.
It was Manty and he played a great game. It was really just a battle of will the social game win or will like your classic competition wins win. And so that's what the speech was. I mad an argument that social game will always triumph competition wins. And so we're sitting there and I remember after everyone voted, when people put their keys and they'll say something kind of witty to have their moment, and the majority of the people said something that felt like a nod to me. We're holding hands and Julie says, oh, we're going to go to commercial or whatever. And as they're playing the music and going to commercial and counting us out, and remember Manti going, I think you might have this one mind you. Monty won the power to decide who would sit next to him in final two. If he chose the other person, he would have won, he would and he chose me because of my social game. Yeah, so I just remember like seeing Julie, what a standard that final thing.
You say that idiot, I don't know who he is? Like gamer, I know, I mean, what's fifty on the line.
I don't wait to talk about your exit, talk.
To do the fun Monty. You know, I pumped his brain with the idea that if he took me to final two with him, it was an easy win. So he didn't think he was being an idiot. He thought he was making the right choice.
But to me, I like, I like, that's a threat. Like if someone's pumping me, I'm like such.
A gamer, it's such a gamer.
I feel like it's finishing. We brought on a lot of winners who are kind of say, like at the back and like they've been doing it for ten fifteen years and here you are, you're kind of like at the start. So so you move out to LA, Like what how do you start to map things out? And like are you saying yes everything or how do you navigate to where you want to be?
So let's have a real talk about the industry. Entertainment news is a dying industry right now. Paramount MTV, CBS, they have basically entirely gout entertainment tonight, even they've essentially gutted their spaces of entertainment news journalists. So the work that I want to do on camera hosting in the traditional sense of I'm Taylor Hale and this is entertainment tonight. It's not only very hard to get into, there is no path to get into that. And that's for so many different jobs in the industry. Producers are having a hard time getting promoted into new positions. That's why the strikes happened, and there's not a lot of mobility happening to this day. So now, after spending a year and a half trying it to the traditional way because that's what I was bred to do being in DC studying journalism, pivoting all these things, now I have to pivot into social media in a way that I didn't expect to. And that's okay. I just know that personally, I don't want to be your typical influencer and here's the brand deal and here's what I'm doing, and get ready with me the type of thing. It's just not my personality. And I think that's okay. I love all my friends that are like massive, mega influencers like that.
You'll get to a point where you know you can pick and choose.
Exactly do this or if you don't want to do that, yeah.
It's always some great money on the side.
Exactly, so I'll take the deal. And it's not a career.
You don't want to do that? What do you want it? What does it look like to you?
So now the industry looks like you got to pick up your camera and just talk directly to the people about what's happening in entertainment. So instead of calling up the traditional agencies and saying, hey, can I extra entertainment tonight? All these different spaces, there's no mobility there. The most mobility is picking up your own camera and saying, Okay, here's the headline going on here, my thoughts and feelings on it, and asking people how they feel and to interact. I just posted something about a brother and how.
Very podcast spot underneath her network here because I feel like she could.
Kill it, Like you got it, you gotta figure it out. So as we wrap things here, So when you look back at everything, and I guess, moving forward, how will you define success now? So you've won this massive show, You've done a great job like building your audience and taking the next step, what is success going to look like to you, if you could be like Dan ten years from now, this is what I want to have happen. Here's what it looks like.
I love this, And ten years i'll be thirty nine years old. Okay, that puts some things into perspective. So for me, success is going to look like the freedom to dictate my career on my own terms. And I'm sure both of you relate to this. When you're a public figure, a lot of people think that they can tell you what your next move is going to be. You need to befriend these people, you need to work at this place, do it this way. When you are fresh on the scene, a lot of times you feel like you have to answer to that. For me, it's going to be having my own following and my own unique perspective on the entertainment space. Owning a house, which I could do right now, but I'm trying to be conservative with the market. Wait, yeah, I'm trying to wait, trying to wigh it out. And also i want to be able to take care of my parents. I'm an only child. I only have one living grandparent. My mom and dad are the only like living immediate family that I have. No first cousins or anything like that. So more than just hey Dad, I got you a new golf club or hey mom, like let me help out with some things here. I want to maybe have like a wing in the house where either of them could be. They can only be one. They can't they can't both be there.
Taylor, I have to say, you know, like I've met a lot of Big Brother winners and stuff like that, but I mean, I'm just gonna be honest, I'm blown away. I think you've got it figured out. I think the big such a young age, I'm taking very like self aware and humble, because that's what do you say that again?
So the people know because they say that I'm cocky and I'm not.
Let some people think if you have an opinion, you're cocky. Well I say to that, like, I'm sorry you don't have opinion because that's my opinion exactly.
But I'll see people come off a reality show and like I'm just cringe and it's like it's you want to show that's like this big and so that's cool, but you're not whoever you think you are. And I just I like, I'm just like very I mean, I'm super impressed. Not that you need to impress me. I'm like, like, I think I think that's pretty cool. I think we're gonna sit here and be like like when this is over and be like everything she said life can I can? I get like an ESPN bet will Taylor Hell be a X Y and Z Yep. I'm going all in.
I'll let you know if that parlay hits ten years.
But thank you so much for coming on. It was appreciated.
A drove out here in a split second speed races.
I'm getting to reality to be Titans. I gotta get there. God. I dropped off my little puppy to get groomed and I was like scared. Thank you so much.
You're amazing.
You'll are the best. See you on Traders Returner Season