‘Big Brother 28’s Kamu Kirk Reveals the Real Reason He Started the Tea Party Conflict (Exclusive)

SPOILER ALERT! This article contains events from the Big Brother 28 live feeds that have yet to be aired on the television episodes. Please don’t read ahead if you prefer not to know competition winners and nominees ahead of time.

To be an MMA fighter requires a remarkable amount of flexibility, weaponizing everything from boxing to wrestling to jiu-jitsu to send your opponent to the mat. And, through a month and a half of Big Brother 28, Kamu Kirk was showcasing a similarly diverse skillset, between his adaptability, relationship building, and being arguably the best competitor in the house. Feeling safe for the week, he sat back happily, eager to be one step closer to putting this game in total submission. He had no idea that he would have a nasty combo thrown his way, courtesy of Rick Devens using his secret Diamond Power of Veto to take Dee Valladares off the block, naming Kamu as the replacement. And when he lost the Block Buster, the newly-formed “Mosh Pit” alliance jumped at the opportunity to land the TKO, staging a coup on “Queen Kamu.”

Knowing the importance of landing the first hit, Kamu entered the Big Brother octagon swinging. He immediately grouped up with Haley Thogmartin and Chuk Anyanwu, then built that out with Dee and Devens into the “Red Corner,” then built that out with Angela Murray, Barrett Pfeiffer, and Drew Campbell into the “Toolshed.” Comfortably sitting in the newfound majority, Kamu got a taste of power in the third week, winning HoH. And he was eager to take down Jason De Puy, feeling he was the biggest threat on the “other side” of the house. But it wasn’t enough to put up the Drag Race star; he was eager to stage a public lashing as well. And so Kamu hijacked the house tea party, accusing Jason of making too many promises and trying to put the power players against each other. It was an awkward and isolating situation, one that certainly put an unnecessary drag on what was supposed to be a fun and relaxing night. While Kamu smiled as Jason left the house a few days later, believing he had “spilled the tea” and made a TV moment, he didn’t realize his actions had scalded his own game in the process.

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The next week, with Haley following up his HoH reign, Kamu was excited for the Toolshed to continue to keep the house in good repair. He had no idea, however, that a coup was coming for the Red Corner administration. The icons, fearing Lyric Medeiros would be more loyal to the other members of their alliance than them, staged a last-minute vote flip, choosing to leave them out of the loop. Kamu, Chuk, and Haley were left seeing stars, confused about who could have kept them in the dark. But, in the chaotic fallout, Kamu decided it was time for him to switch parties. After the wall HoH literally slipped from his grasp, he went to La Trice “Lala” Verrett, throwing Chuk and Haley under the bus to save himself from the block. When his pitch got him to avoid nomination, he proved his loyalty when he chose not to use the Veto, despite his formerly closest allies both being on the block. With his moves this week, Kamu showed how quickly and easily he could pivot his tactics and allegiances. Which made him the most dangerous player in the game.

Kamu let out a sigh of relief when he saw Yash Patel win the next HoH, knowing the situation was about to become a lot less hairy. And, with a newfound Final 2 partner in power, he was eager to take a shot at one of his first allies. Kamu and Dee had an up-and-down partnership the past couple of weeks, with her both leading the Lyric eviction and telling him about her power. But their on-again, off-again dynamic got permanently switched into the “off” position when he used the opportunity to not only get the Survivor winner on the block. With an unsuccessful bribe and an unused Veto, Kamu was salivating at the prospect of snuffing out Dee’s chances of survival. But leave it to Rick Devens to pull something completely unexpected out of his pocket. The Diamond Power of Veto got Dee out of the nomination chairs, and despite their multiple alliances together, Devens found the opportune moment to make Kamu vulnerable. After putting up a calm exterior in the wake of the blindside, Kamu was ironically having trouble seeing red in the Block Buster. When Angela took home the win, the MMA fighter was DOA, as his first nomination of the season became the lethal blow.

Now out of the house, Kamu talks with Parade about his reasoning behind the tea party, whether he regrets turning on Chuk and Haley, and why he thinks the icons are set up to make a deep run.

Related: Meet the Full Cast of Big Brother 28

Let’s start with where your Big Brother bout ended. In your last couple of days in the house, you and Yash had spoken about how you felt you had the votes to stay. By the time Angela had won the Block Buster, did you think that was still the case?
I was hopeful that I had the votes. But I knew that people in the house saw me as a threat, and that’s why I had to fight the last couple of days to try to get the votes. And I haven’t watched anything back, so it’s hard to know for sure. But it seemed like people were kind of going back and forth. Maybe they were solid the whole time, and they were just entertaining me, I don’t know.

But I was hopeful that I had the votes, especially sitting next to Haley because I know that she wasn’t the most liked person in the house, although I think that she’s great. But I knew that people looked at me as a big threat. They looked at me as a solid competitor in the house, and I had really good relationships with basically everybody in the house. I had a good genuine friendship with everybody, which is also why I never took things personal in the house. I understood that things were game-related, and I have the ability to separate personal friendships versus what’s going on in the game, and so I think people knew that. And if they had their shot, I wasn’t surprised that they took it.

So I can tell you that Mallory and Melody were legitimately going back and forth the past few days about whether to keep you. But they also had some feelings about you based on previous weeks. Mallory wasn’t happy that you took over her tea party. And Melody spoke about how she felt you kept saying she should have kids, even joking at one point, “We’re getting you pregnant, like it or not.” What’s your reaction to that?
I don’t even remember that conversation. If did say it, and I guess I did, it was a total joke. I remember saying that my sister used to say that she didn’t want kids, and then she met the love of her life, and then she couldn’t wait to have kids with him. But I don’t remember saying, “We’re going to get you pregnant, whether you like it or not.” But if I did, it was a total joke. Melody is a comedian. She has a great sense of humor, and she would dish out jokes all the time. She and I always had really good banter, and I think we’re going to be good friends after this. I thought we had a really good relationship.

But as far as Mallory goes, Mallory and I had a good relationship as well. With the tea party man and with Jason, there were things I was constantly hearing about different stories and different lies from Jason. Initially, I thought about having a private conversation with him, but I didn’t think it’d be that productive, only because I just assumed that he would lie. So for me, I thought, “You know, let’s just air everything out and get everything out in the open. And people can hear what he’s saying and see if what he’s saying matches up with the stories that he’s told privately, and then I can hear what he’s saying in front of the house.” But that was never to get to Mallory or to upset her by any means. But I feel like I had really good relationships with people in the house. And I think I could be wrong because I haven’t watched it back, but I think that taking me out was more game and more strategy than it was personal.

Let’s talk more about the tea party. At that point, you already knew that Jason was going out. And people both inside and outside the house felt airing everything out was unnecessary and isolating. What made you decide to make such a public overture against him?
Jason was a really good competitor, a very, very solid competitor. And so, what I wanted was in the case he won the Block Buster — and in my head. I thought there was a really good chance he would have — I wanted people to know, “Hey man, Jason can’t really be trusted.” His game already blew up the week prior for the same reasons. He was playing a real messy game, and he was telling everybody different things and trying to pin people against each other. He was doing that when Devens was HoH and then he was doing that while I was HOH.

And so my thought process was, if he stays in the house, I want people to know, “Man, he’s not somebody that can be trusted.” Because he was such a threat in the game. So that was my thought process. And then of course he ended up losing the Block Buster, and we were able to take him out that night. But I wanted to get everything out in the open. I wanted to hear the truth and hear people defend themselves a little bit, so we could hear what was true and what was a lie. And then try to burn the bridges that he had if he were to stay in the game, so that we could hopefully take him out the next week.

I know you at one point shouted out Frankie Grande in the Diary Room, asking to get set up with his sister. I’m not sure if you know this, but one of his best friends is actually Jason.
I heard about that! Dude, that’s totally cool. Again, on a personal level, I love Jason. And I hope that when I see him on finale night, I hope that we can shake hands, and I’ll probably reach out to him on social media as well, and just let him know, “Hey, bro, I love you. Nothing was personal at all. Our game didn’t align.” But that’s totally cool. And dude, I’m a huge fan of Frankie Grande as well, so I hope to meet him at some point. And I have nothing but respect and love for both of them.

After the Lyric vote left you blindsided, you chose to go to Lala to throw Chuk and Haley under the bus. And by not using the Veto on them, you seemingly severed that alliance. Why did you decide to pivot so majorly, and how do you look back on those decisions now?
So at the time when I made the decision to talk to Lala, it was only because I didn’t trust Haley and Chuk. There were three people that voted to evict Melody, and I knew that I was one of them, and I knew that Yash was the other because I really did trust Yash. I didn’t know exactly how Chuk voted, and then you have Dee and Angela, who were also saying that they voted to evict Melody as well. So there was a lot of confusion. I didn’t think that Angela and Dee would turn against Haley, so I thought that Haley was in on it. I didn’t know who I could trust at that point. All I knew was that my alliance members had turned on me. I had to pivot and find a new group of people to work with.

So when Lala told me the next morning that I was going up on the block, I knew that I had to try to make a move, and I knew that I went to self-preservation mode in the house. And so again, I didn’t know if I could trust Haley and Chuk. Chuk started running his mouth about me saying, “Kamu flipped, Kamu’s lying,” and that was enough for me. When he started to throw my name out, I was like, “Alright, I got to go to Lala. I’m gonna throw Chuk under the bus because he’s already doing that with me. And I gotta make sure that I live to see another week in the house.”

You talk about the number of good relationships you had in the house. Had you survived this week, who were you planning on working with and targeting moving forward?
Moving forward, I would have loved to have worked with — I call us the “rookies, “the people who are playing for the first time, the non-icons. And I love the icons again on a human level. On a personal level. I like everybody in the house, every single person in the house, and I have genuine relationships with all of them. But game-wise, I would have definitely targeted the icons.

I think that the longer the icons are in the house, the stronger their story becomes. And if they make it into the jury — which they’re going to now, at least a couple of them. When they make it into the jury, they’re gonna always look after each other. So if there’s an icon that makes it to the end, the two icons who are in the jury are gonna look to vote for the icon who made it to the end. They’re always gonna protect each other over everybody else, and that was my pitch at the end.

And their story becomes strong. They’re gonna say, “Look, I came into the house with a huge target on my back. And I still made it to the end.” So I was hoping that people saw it that way as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the votes. It is what it is. But I definitely would have continued to work with Yash, Taylor, Lala, people that I can trust. And then I would have tried to work with anybody else who was down to ride.

To finish, give your rapid-fire thoughts on each of the remaining houseguests. Starting with Angela.
I would say nurturing. I call her Mama Angela. She always was kind of like a mom in the house. She played the game and had experience, and she was always helping us rookies along the way.
Barrett.
Barrett is dangerous. I think Barrett is sitting very, very pretty in the house. I think he’s going to make it really far.
Dee.
I would say messy.
Devens.
Mastermind.
Drew.
I would say shifty.
Haley.
Loyal, but stubborn.
La Trice.
Lala is a sweetheart, but she’s a little bit of a wildcard. She’s a sweetheart, she’s emotional.
Mallory.
She’s also dangerous.
Melody.
Melody is funny. Good, good player. Funny and smart.
Taylor.
She’s a silent assassin, man! She kind of hangs out in the shadows and she locks in. I love Taylor.
And finally, Yash.
My boy YP! My boy Yash! I would say trustworthy, loyal, and ride or die.

Related: ‘Big Brother 28’s Chuk Anyanwu Reveals He Was ‘Disgusted’ By Lala’s Gameplay — And Why He Still Stands By It (Exclusive)