This time last week, the “Cookout” alliance had made Big Brother history. It was the first six-person majority alliance to make up the entirety of the endgame, and most importantly, it guaranteed the first Black winner in the mainline show’s history. And one cannot talk about the Cookout without talking about Tiffany Mitchell. The phlebotomist put her blood, sweat, and tears into her alliance, concocting a master plan that led to their success. But it was also for the sake of what the Cookout represented that she cut loose individual allies, to the point where she became the first to be cooked when the group turned on each other. Though Tiffany admits her gameplan changed when she walked into the house and saw five Black faces, she still used her first few weeks to construct an impressive web. Despite not being in the initial “Slaughterhouse” alliance, she got in good with frenetic HoH Brandon “Frenchie” French, and then proceeded to help break it up the next week once Kyland Young got into power. While chopping the heads off the “three-headed snake” of Frenchie, Brent Champagne, and Whitney Williams, she got close with a number of people throughout the house. That included fellow Queen Claire Rehfuss, then-outcast Derek Xiao, and competition beast Christian Birkenberger. And she used those relationships to create an insomnia-fueled master plan, which would use a system of pawns to help ease the Cookout into making it to the end. As we can see, the plan was executed. But it wasn’t without its difficulties. Naturally, Tiffany had difficulty letting go of the non-Cookout members, occasionally even debating whether she should turn on the alliance to help her individual game. She had her disagreements with other alliance members, most notably Derek Frazier and Azah Awasum. And her gunning for HoH had left a sour taste in Kyland and Xavier Prather’s mouths, as they believed she was acting “selfishly” and couldn’t be trusted. It was a tough week for Tiffany, who started it having to nominate Claire and explain why her closest ally would be evicted. Though she felt safe with the Final Three deal she made with Kyland and Hannah Chaddha, he had different plans. He had put all of his eggs in Xavier’s basket, and Ky left her high and dry. Tiffany walked out defeated but with a smile, happy that though she didn’t win, she accomplished the feat that someone that looked like her would. Now on the way to the jury house, Tiffany talks with Parade.com about how she came up with her plan for the Cookout’s success, the difficulty in balancing allies and personal feelings, and the moment she came closest to going against the Cookout for her individual game. You formulated the master plan for the Cookout to get to the end using pawns for each person. Walk us through your thinking behind that. I was able to come up with this plan using chess pieces. I needed to see visually how we were moving and how we were set in the house. Once I got the six chess pieces with the three girls and the three guys, I knew we needed eleven members for the jury. I just lined up the fact that we needed five more people. I looked at who everyone was already working with. I decided who should make up the jury, because we need to know how people will vote. We had two more evictions before we got to eleven, so I realized who did not need to sit in jury, who may not have accepted our plan at the end. Once I got the five other members to join our teams, I started going through who probably needs to be evicted first, so we get to six. Essentially, I lined the chess pieces up, realized who we were working with, and decided we needed to accept and embrace this duo thing that was going on in the house. People looked at it as a bad thing, but I thought, “We should all become duos! Then we could sit next to each other’s partners and always have the vote to stay, but hopefully, we won’t have to show our cards.” How do you look back on that plan considering it got the Cookout to where they are, but you’re the first to go? Getting evicted first after coming up with that plan…that’s just the way it is. At some point, I realized they were going to want me out first. I thought, “I may not win this game. But this was my mission. Maybe I was here just to help us get to six.” I’m totally fine with that. I am definitely proud that something I did helped the six get to where they are. That was great for me. I have no regrets about that. I don’t feel bad about it; I’m not upset with them at all. You had several disagreements with fellow Cookout members like Big D and Azah. How difficult was it to manage your feelings about them while also being in an alliance? At times, it was challenging to manage my emotions and my personal feelings with Azah and Big D specifically. We don’t think the same about many things. It’s very fine for you and another person to not think the same; you can definitely disagree. In the game, you have a very short time to show who you are to someone. Gameplay and character are a little different in the game. I didn’t want to be mischaracterized, especially by Azah, when we didn’t agree. I didn’t want her not to trust me. I totally respect her. I had a genuine love for her, and I still do. Wanting to move forward with her in the game, but not wanting her to take my moves personally, was a challenge. With Big D…ooh! I’m still thinking about how to process Big D. (Laughs.) We had misunderstandings, but we did make up and had a very open conversation before I left. I think we both were miscommunicating with each other and misunderstanding how we felt towards one another. It’s a challenge when you have to set aside personal for game and a mission. But I knew that’s what I had to do, so I could never take anything personally and not have their back. At several points, you considered turning votes to keep people like Christian, Derek X., and Claire. What was the closest moment you came to favoring your individual game over the Cookout? Wow. The closest moment I had to flipping votes to favor my own personal game was when I wanted to keep Christian. Xavier wanted to keep Christian; it wasn’t just me in the Cookout. He loves Christian and wanted him to stay. When Claire said she wanted to keep him too, I am a huge Big Brother fan. It meant everything to me to flip the house upside down. However, if that was going to damage the master plan, which I think would have twisted some things for us and made it more difficult, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Immediately when Xavier said we were outvoted, I accepted that. I didn’t want anything to come in between our master plan. But it was definitely the opportunity to save Christian and get out Sarah Beth. That was my whole dream. I wanted Sarah Beth out of that house so fast; I thought it was my chance to do it. But it wasn’t. (Laughs.) Let’s finish with some rapid-fire thoughts about your fellow houseguests. Starting with Azah. Queen!Derek. Which one?F. Oh…Joker.Hannah. Beautiful and intelligent.Kyland. Gorgeous and conniving. (Laughs.)And finally, Xavier. Incredible. Next, check out our interview with Alyssa Lopez, who was evicted in Week 9 as part of the first double eviction of the season.
