Everyone Hates Angela — But as a 'Big Brother' Superfan, Here's Why I Love Her

On July 20, 2024, Angela Murray walked down the stairs into the kitchen of the Big Brother house. And straight into my reality TV obsessive heart.

To say the real estate agent has been one of the most polarizing houseguests in recent memory would be an understatement. After all, she established herself from the jump on Season 26 of the CBS summer series as an agent of chaos and conflict, someone not afraid to provide a cutting remark with the ferocity of slicing meat and cheese for a charcuterie board. And, only two years later, Big Brother fans find themselves living through deja vu, yet again watching Angela, despite her better judgment, kicking off another season with big moves and even bigger fights.

Given Angela’s penchant for drama, she’s earned a wide variety of reactions over the past two years. Some can’t stand her, feeling she actively derails gameplay happening in the house and gets too personal with her digs. Others simply sit back and smile watching her shenanigans on the live feeds. I can say I proudly put myself in the latter, always eager to pull down the lap bar, throw my hands in the air, and get ready for the roller coaster.

Here are all the reasons why I love Angela Murray on Big Brother, and why you should, too!

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Angela changed the game for older houseguests

Big Brother prides itself on showcasing myriad personalities and backgrounds every summer. Admittedly, though, across 27 years and counting, there are some tropes that casting will fall into. We’ll always get a handful of “bros,” eager to treat the entire competition like one big at-home workout. On the opposite end of the high school spectrum, there’s always a “quirky” guy or girl (or, if we get lucky, both) whose nerdom either endears them to the house or makes them an early pariah. And, for some reason, we always have to have an alumnus from Texas A&M involved.

But one of the biggest consistencies across casting are the “older” houseguests (that is to say, players in their late 40s and above). From a pure demographic perspective, Big Brother is, for all intents and purposes, a young man’s game. Out of every year’s cast, at least half of them are in their twenties. And the rest aren’t that far out, usually topping out at around 35. The oldest houseguests in a Big Brother season typically max out in the 50s (including Angela herself). Suffice it to say, having the majority of your peers in the house be decades younger than you is not the most welcoming environment. Staggeringly, across 27 winners of Big Brother, a grand total of two were over the age of 30 at the time of their victory.

And so, we’ll often see the older houseguests get largely disregarded in the competition. They don’t have enough in common with their younger compatriots to be brought into the early alliances. They have difficulty keeping up physically, especially as competitions turn more intense towards the endgame. For the modern-day seasons in particular, we can look at people like Terrance Higgins, Cliffton “Will” Williams, and Kenney Kelley (the latter of whom actually played with Angela on Big Brother 26), who all did not wield much power during their time in the house. Even if we go old-school to some of the most iconic older houseguests in the show’s history, Big Brother 10 standouts Jerry MacDonald and Renny Martyn are much more fondly remembered for their over-the-top character moments, rather than game-changing moves.

That is not the case with Angela. When she found herself at the top in the very first week of her Big Brother career, she took a massive shot, backdooring the biggest alpha male in the house. The vast majority of the time, the first HoH tends to go for an “easy” house target, in the hopes of establishing a majority alliance, then fading to the background to avoid getting thrown up on the block the next week. But Angela showcased from the jump that she was willing to play fearlessly, wielding a power in the very beginning that’s usually quite unseen for houseguests in her age bracket. Angela is proof positive that age is just a number when it comes to being a mover and shaker in the Big Brother house.

Despite claiming she was a changed player, we’re arguably getting an even bigger example of this in Big Brother 28. While she hasn’t directly held power or even won a competition, Angela has consistently been pushing to go for the “big move.” Most recently, she was able to successfully get Rick Devens to gun directly for Rome Seymour and his allies, fearing the influence the pickleball coach was amassing. And, true, Felicia Cannon and Cirie Fields showed in Season 25 that they were also able to be power players, birth date be damned. But Angela was able to showcase that while also bringing a penchant for drama. Which leads me to…

Related: ‘Big Brother 28’ Spoilers: The Veto Winner Sets Up a Brutal Backdoor

Angela reminds us why conflict is necessary in Big Brother

Now, just to clarify here, I don’t necessarily mean all conflict is necessary for the show to succeed. After all, across 27 seasons, we have seen some truly abhorrent behavior, including racism, sexism, homophobia, inside the walls of the house. And, as much as the Big Brother community may look back on something like Season 19 with an “I can’t believe that actually happened” lightness, that doesn’t obfuscate the dread that exists watching an entire summer of unpleasant, ugly behavior.

But that’s not to say that Big Brother should be a “kumbaya” type of show. First off, that’s just antithetical to the concept of reality TV itself. Yes, on paper, the unscripted genre has existed for so long that there is nowadays more of an “it’s just a game” attitude among contestants. But the entire conceit is that it’s meant to be personal. These are games that require full immersion to succeed, giving your blood, sweat, and tears in an effort to make it one step further towards your goal. Especially in an environment like Big Brother, the game becomes your life, as there’s the additional element of eating and sleeping alongside your competition, at least some of whom have been put on the show specifically to bristle with your personality.

In the first few days of Big Brother 26, true to her trope, Angela was regarded as the loving mother of the house. But that all changed the minute she quite literally woke up and chose violence. What followed is one of the most dramatic and instantly iconic moments in the show’s history, as she chided people who had approached her for an alliance, decrying their performances to the quality of a low-budget movie. But the bluest part of her flame was reserved for Matt Hardeman, whom she went in on for allegedly having her name in his mouth. It was theatrical, scathing, and absolutely riveting, made even funnier by the fact that she continued to state throughout that she still wanted to have a great summer with the people she was calling out (only interrupting herself to throw a stray Matt’s way, telling him, “Except you, don’t talk to me”).

But she wasn’t done there! Perhaps riding the high of successfully getting “Crazy Eyes” out of the house, Angela was more than happy to lay her eyes on other people who irked her. Mere days later, she and Lisa Weintraub were getting into it, as she called the celebrity chef a “twit,” and even mocked her walk. Yet again, while Angela came into her second season saying she was here to play a calmer game, in true time travel fashion, the past came back to haunt her. When she found out Jason De Puy had been fake crying to her and claiming she was his new mom in the house, she was ready to rain down fire and fury. And, at the end of this week’s nomination ceremony, we are getting a proper poaching. Right now, we’re eagerly counting down the hours until tonight’s episode, where the cliffhanger of the fallout will resolve, and Angela will add yet another tally mark to the rivalries she’s accrued across her Big Brother career.

It takes a rare houseguest to stand up and call somebody out when she doesn’t like what they’re doing or how they’re playing. It takes a once-in-a-lifetime person to have the confidence to do it while dressed like a giant egg.

Related: 5 ‘Big Brother’ Powers That Should Return for Season 28

Angela created the blueprint for the “BB Block Buster” era

Angela’s first season happened to be the start of one of the biggest game changers in Big Brother history — and also one of its most celebrated. For the past three summers, the “BB Block Buster” (then known as the “AI Arena”) permanently shook up the structure of the typical week. Rather than a traditional two nominees, the HoH puts three people up on the block, leaving them all vulnerable going into eviction night. Luckily, the trio has one last chance to compete for safety. Minutes before their fellow houseguests go to vote, they take part in another competition. The winner gets immediately removed from the block, with the two losers becoming the final nominees for the week.

I could pen an entire ode to how I think the Block Buster is one of the best twists in Big Brother history, second only to the Power of Veto. How it’s brought necessary dramatics to arguably the most straightforward part of the week. How last-minute victories led to some of the most shocking blindsides in the show’s history. Angela was the very first person to ever have to contend with the “Block Buster” as HoH. And she came out of the gate strong.

To put it bluntly, men like Matt Hardeman are typically positioned to do well in Big Brother. Between their early positioning, charisma, and competition prowess, they often evade being early targets. The previous summer, we had seen that happen to one of its biggest extremes, as Jag Bains and Matt Klotz ran the table in the latter half of Season 25, taking a grip of the game that they never relinquished until the Final 2 chairs.

Perhaps that’s what Angela had in mind when she decided to both call out Matt publicly and follow it up with putting him on the block. And, with him now vulnerable for eviction, talks began to stir in the house about whether they want to give him the leverage to succeed in a way many like him have before. Even so, the talk was mere whispers. There was the fear of the unknown that was the eviction night competition, and whether it would be favored for Matt, by far the most athletic out of the three nominees.

Fortunately, the players and fans alike quickly realized that the Block Buster competitions are much more equitable than expected. They reward those with good observation, perfect touch, and puzzle skills, rather than simply the strongest and fastest. So, despite the expectations, Matt lost and remained on the block. And the majority of the house decided that moment was the time to strike.

While Big Brother 26 would provide much bigger power moves from the Block Buster results, it set an important precedent from the jump. The young, athletic types were no longer effectively immune for the early part of the game. In fact, if you were looking to take care of one before they became a threat, the first week may now be the best time to do it. I think it’s no coincidence that the past two seasons have also seen the first HoH nominate a “bro” in Zae Fredrickson and Yash Patel. Angela was able to showcase how much power the HoH can hold in the Block Buster era, and how it can be used to create relatively unconventional early boots.

Related: Julie Chen Moonves Admits One ‘Big Brother 28’ Reality Icon ‘Does Not Get It’ (Exclusive)

Angela Murray is “expect the unexpected”

“You want good TV?” Big Brother Canada Season 2 contestant Sabrina Abbate asked rhetorically as part of a post-nominations meltdown. “Does everybody want good f—king TV?!”

And my answer is a resounding yes!

Of course, you may quibble with whether or not you like the shenanigans Angela has brought to our screens going on two seasons of Big Brother. But you cannot argue that she has given us plenty to talk about. Again, she is definitively one of the most-dsucssed houseguests of the modern era of the show, and may stack up there with some of the biggest personalities Big Brother has ever offered. Whether you go onto Twitter/X, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or just ask the biggest superfans in your inner circle, they are all going to have an opinion about Angela one way or the other.

And that’s because she’s been the source of some of the most unbelievable situations in the show’s history. Either watching the episodes or the 24/7 live feeds, getting to see what Angela does sometimes is truly unbelievable. What do you mean she started the morning by dramatically slow-clapping, then launching into a tirade directed towards one person in the first week of the game? What do you mean she created a one-sided grudge against someone for eating her HoH food, grousing about her simultaneous anger and despair while lying on the floor of the Diary Room in a pose straight out of a Calvin Klein ad? What do you mean she decided to hijack a nominations ceremony and call an impromptu house meeting to air out her dirty laundry with a two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, all while — I must repeat for emphasis — dressed as an egg detective?

Look, I don’t ask much when it comes to my enjoyment of reality TV. Yes, it’s always nice to see mind-bending, next-level gameplay. I love watching unconventional friendships develop, and for those to even occasionally turn romantic. But, at the end of the day, I’ll get the most enjoyment out of someone if they are simultaneously showcasing their willingness to play, displaying their larger-than-life personality, and making some incredible TV moments. Luckily for me, I get all three, contained within a 52-year-old grandma from Utah. And hopefully I will continue to do so not only for the rest of this summer, but for many seasons — and shows — thereafter.

Related: Meet the ‘Big Brother’ Season 28 Cast — Including the Surprising Reality TV All-Stars!