Big Brother 26’s T’kor Clottey is explaining why she was never ride-or-die for Quinn Martin the way he was for her.
“I [could] never fully trust Quinn even though we had the Visionaries [alliance with Kimo Apaka] and he revealed the Pentagon alliance [to us] … because after he created that alliance — where he very much was adamant on making it a final three — it was then discovered that he had a whole bunch of final twos and final threes with other people,” T’kor, 23, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, September 20, one day after her elimination from the CBS reality series. “So, I never knew if I was his actual priority in this game.”
Quinn, 25, who was evicted one week before T’kor, did in fact make several final-two deals with houseguests including Angela Murray, Leah Peters and Joseph Rodriguez. However, he repeatedly said in the diary room from early in the game that T’kor and Kimo, 36, were his priority. But as is often the case in Big Brother, T’kor and Kimo had no real way of knowing whether Quinn was truly loyal.
The Visionaries’ bond was tested during week 4 when T’kor and Kimo successfully flipped the vote to keep Rubina Bernabe over Cedric Hodges when Quinn held the Deepfake Head of Household power. Cedric, 22, was one of Quinn’s close allies while Rubina, 35, was in a showmance with Tucker Des Lauriers, who was openly targeting Quinn. From that point on, T’kor and Kimo grew closer to Rubina and Tucker, 30, and drifted farther away from Quinn.
T’kor told Us that Quinn’s tight relationship with Leah, 26, also gave her pause.
“There was [also] the dichotomy of seeing his relationship with Leah and [then having] an HoH [reign] where I got to hear [Leah’s] thoughts more [and] hear that Quinn was someone that she saw as a target,” T’kor said. “And even after sharing that information with him, [I saw] him not necessarily taking it to heed and still passing on information and telling [Leah] things that gave her a lot of information in this game.”
T’kor’s fellow houseguests considered her social game to be one of the strongest in the house, to the point where players hesitated to put her on the block out of fear that no one would vote her out.
Head of Household Leah initially nominated Kimo and Rubina for eviction this week, feeling that it was essential to break up T’kor, Kimo and Rubina’s strong relationship one way or another. She named T’kor as a replacement nominee after Angela, 51, used the veto on Kimo. The house then agreed that T’kor was a bigger threat than Rubina, and everyone except Kimo voted to evict her.
After being nominated, T’kor covered her face in her hands, overcome with emotion.
“When I was nominated, honestly, the thing that went through my mind was the mix of emotions that I felt for honestly being happy for Kimo … but then also the tragedy of having to sit next to Rubina, and the realization that one of us would be gone this week when Rubina really has been a rock and a source of light to me in this game,” T’kor said. “Over the past 66 days, I really formed strong bonds with people.”
Big Brother airs on CBS Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
