Big Brother season 28 officially kicks off this evening on CBS, but the latest season of the long-running reality series has already suffered its first scandal of the summer!
On July 7, just two days before the new season was slated to begin, CBS unveiled the first wave of houseguests set to move into the Big Brother house to compete as part of season 28. Via a special YouTube cast reveal, we met the 14 new houseguests set to play the game this summer, and the cast announcement was quickly overshadowed by some behind-the-scenes drama involving a mystery houseguest who was MIA from the cast video.
It all began when Men’s Journal included houseguest Levi Banks in their cast roundup before quickly removing his photo and bio from the post. We’d quickly come to learn that Levi’s cast photos and bio were included in materials sent to the press ahead of the cast announcement before being pulled back last-minute, with Levi removed from the cast and replaced with Yash Patel, who was announced during the YouTube cast announcement.
Fans quickly took note of the change, with conversations springing up on Reddit about the last-minute change with Levi being bumped from the cast for Yash, who was an alternate brought in right ahead of the premiere.
Levi’s removal from the game has since been confirmed by The Sun with a production source confirming to the outlet that Levi went through the full casting process, which included the promotional photoshoot, which explains why his cast portrait was released to the media, as he also entered sequester for the season.
“After everything, he was pulled from the season at basically the very last second. Yash was an alternate and replaced Levi,” the source revealed.
Interestingly, there has yet to be any information provided as to why Levi was pulled from the game so close to the season premiere and cast reveal. CBS has yet to release a statement of any kind about the cast change, leaving fans to wonder if Levi perhaps broke protocol of the show that led to his removal or if there was another behind-the-scenes event that led to his removal from the cast.
We saw two players removed from the Survivor 49 cast for breaking the show’s rules during the pre-season sequester window. The news was widely reported, and the reason for their removal was quickly addressed by CBS and host Jeff Probst.
One would assume if Levi broke protocol of the game, CBS would have released a statement of some kind at this point. However, the lack of an announcement begs the question of whether Levi was the one to drop out of the show rather than production removing him from the cast due to a break in protocol.
Hopefully, CBS will address Levi’s removal from the game. Even better, perhaps we’ll see Levi enter the game as part of a twist of the season, thus explaining why he was pulled from the cast list so close to the premiere. We’d certainly be interested to see Levi enter the game via a twist, though it would add another level of intrigue with reports that Yash was an alternate tapped to take his place.
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