Timing is a big commonality between music and strategy games. If you come in with your part too early or too late, it could throw the entire thing off-rhythm and end up turning all eyes on you in the process. And ironically enough, Chris Kirkpatrick had a difficult time keeping things in sync in the Celebrity Big Brother house. After successfully playing the middle of a divided house, his diminishing loyalties began to show to those in power. And over an eventful few days, Chris Kirkpatrick got his ass-kicked by Miesha Tate, thrown up on the block and evicted after making the biggest move of the season. Chris entered the house as a fan of the game and used that knowledge to get himself in an ideal place early on. He got recruited into Miesha’s athletes’ alliance while maintaining friendly relationships with everybody else. Additionally, he made a critical bond with Shanna Moakler on Day 2, officially becoming partners in the game. After becoming Head of Household, Chris set his focus on Mirai Nagasu, feeling she was a threat and someone loyal to Miesha above all. But as the first live veto of the season loomed, Chris and Shanna began to formulate other plans, entertaining the idea of backdooring Miesha’s closest ally Todrick Hall. Despite Shanna winning the veto, Chris chose not to go through with the Todrick plan, wary of the wildcard that was Chris Kattan. Instead, they played it safe, and Mirai was evicted. But despite not making the move, Miesha and Todrick were beginning to sense Chris’ waning devotion to their group. When Miesha came into power once more, she initially targeted the duo of Cynthia Bailey and Carson Kressley. When Shanna won the veto, Chris suggested she use it this time. The hope would be that Carson would be safe, and they could continue to ride the middle, even if with the renomination, “It’s gonna be me.” And that turned out to be just the case. Shanna stunned Miesha when she went back on her word and took down Carson. And as retribution, she nominated Chris. Despite this leading to an abrupt end for the singer, his shiny teeth were beaming, thrilled that he had turned the house against Miesha and Todrick and made some fun moves. Now out of the house, Chris talks with Parade.com about his surprising satisfaction with his eviction, why he chose to not backdoor Todrick on his HoH, and the surprising way he found out he was in the athletes’ alliance. WARNING: The question below reveals the most recent Head of Household competition results, which will play out on Sunday’s episode. Please skip if you do not want to know the winner ahead of time. Many of us are surprised with how calm and happy you are with the way things shook out over the next few days. As a fan of the game, are you surprised at your reaction? I mean, first of all, making the move that we did in the game, I was probably 65% sure that this would be the result. But I couldn’t see that side of the house being taken down like that. I freaking adore Carson. And he and Cynthia were just waiting there to get picked off. And I’m like, “No, you’re not. That’s not fair.” It just didn’t seem right to me. It seemed like the right thing to do was to step in and say, “Let’s go after the big guys and make this a fair fight.” Make it fun for people to watch, where you’re not just watching two people sit around and do nothing and continually talk about who’s going to vote for them when they win. It just seemed like what we had to do was make a move. And as crazy as it sounds, I think it worked! Especially Carson getting HoH. My plan worked to perfection. Obviously, I’m the one here. But it was either going to be me, Cynthia, or Carson. So I would rather take a swing and have me be the one out than either one of those two. You gravitated towards Miesha immediately due to your MMA fandom. But part of the reason she nominated you was that she felt you were no longer as close with her. Talk to me about your relationship. I think the problem is that she knew me. We were playing the same game when it came to being straightforward. We’d look you in the eye and tell you what you want to hear. In one of the first conversations we had, she said, “Well, let’s be real about this. You’re not going to win this. What are you going to do? You’re going to be up on the block against me; I’m going to win. You go up against Todrick; he’s going to win.” I was like, “Alright, that hurts.” But it’s straightforward. She was always honest with me. The problem was she had Todrick on her hip and in her ear the whole time telling her the opposite. At that point, he just wanted me out. And he would tell her anything and whisper these things in her ear. But you know, I’ve straight-up told her many times, “Listen, I’ve got you.” Meaning I wanted to be her number one person that she trusts, or that’s giving her all this advice. And that’s what really frightened her. I totally understood, and she was really upset when she put me on the block. But I told her, “Listen, it’s a game. I’m fine. You made a preemptive strike, which is fine.” But I was never gunning for her, even in flipping the house and getting the other side up. I was going to go back, go on her side and help her fight whoever was left in a fun fight. I just didn’t like the backstabbing and everything that was happening. It would not have seemed like a fun house if they had just slowly picked off Carson, Cynthia, and Shanna. I don’t want to play that game if they’re not there. To that point, when you were HoH, you had really put out the idea of backdooring Todrick if you or Shanna had won the veto. Ultimately, you chose not to do it. Why? Well, we never really approached Mirai, and I think that was a problem. I would have never put Miesha up. I don’t know if I even said that. But if I did, there was nothing in my head that ever thought of putting Miesha up. Because I think that was too soon in all of our relationships. I mean, I already feel now that they don’t think I played an honest game and I wasn’t trustworthy. So that hurts. But I would have put Todrick up, not Miesha. But I didn’t want to jump on my alliance. I wanted to be honest with them and play with them and really see where it was going. But it wasn’t until after that, that I really saw how they were just shooting fish in a barrel, and how eventually I was going to go. At that point, Lamar and Todd might have been above me on the totem pole. But the other factor was the original plan was Chris Kattan. We were going to take Chris Kattan down so that they couldn’t have rallied. Because that way, it was either Mirai, who was close with that side, or Todrick. But in talking to Chris, he just didn’t understand. I don’t think he understood the game; he really didn’t understand what was happening. And it really sucked. Because I approached him and I said, “Listen, if I pull you down, I need to do this.” And he blew that up. And I was like, “Oh, my God, Chris. Stop! This is not good!” So I’m like, “He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if I pull him down. And he could get confused and vote for the wrong person to stay, and then we’d be really screwed.” Then Mirai would have gone home, and now Todrick’s really gunning for me. So there were a couple of things that factored into that. And I think the second time when we swung, I was like, “We already missed a chance.” I think if I just slowly just waited to get picked off, I would have said, “Shoulda coulda woulda.” So I figured let’s do it! Speaking of Mirai, she seemed to be one of the only people you did not have a good relationship with in the house. And I know there were some rumblings of something happening before the feeds came on. Talk to me more about your dynamic. I mean, a lot was going on in the week. When she was on the block the first time, she was not in a good place. That house was not healthy for her. She never really talked game with me. She talked with Miesha, and apparently, we were in alliance. I had to hear about our alliance accidentally by production! When they were asking me questions about it, they were like, “So, this athletes’ alliance?” And I was like, “You’re the third producer to ask me about this. What’s the athletes’ alliance?” And then they had to backpedal. So that was a red flag to me. Clearly, there’s way more going on here than meets the eye. And I’m not stupid. Well, I’m stupid enough to backdoor myself, but I’m not stupid. I knew Mirai was really close with them. And at that point, she wasn’t talking to me. So I built up that all the stuff that happened was one of the reasons that I was gunning for Mirai. But it was mostly because I knew she was really tight with Miesha and Todrick. Miesha just kept collecting people under her to make it easier to throw me out. Let’s finish with some rapid-fire thoughts on the remaining houseguests. Starting with Carson. Hilarious. A breath of fresh air. That guy is trustworthy. He’s someone that I would love to see win this game.Cynthia. Cynthia is really sweet. She actually did a lot, especially when stuff happened and we had to step outside the game for a minute. She prayed with me and was very motherly. So I’d say “motherly.“Lamar. Funny, but I don’t know if Lamar knew what was going on. They say he had a plan, but I don’t know. I think he just wanted to go home, and then he wanted to stay, and then he wanted to go home, and he wanted to stay. I’d say “confused.“Miesha. Strong competitor but straightforward. Really told it like it was.Shanna. I love Shanna. Shana was almost like a lost soul in there, and we just found each other. Luckily I got scooped up into a big alliance, and I brought her with me. But she’s a powerful competitor. She’s got this weird side to her that I was blown away by. She won two vetoes in a row! I was like, “Who are you?!” (Laughs.)Todd. Todd is funny. But I think Todd thinks he’s got the game figured out, and he’s kind of clueless.And finally, Todrick. I think a lot of my thoughts about him changed after I got out of the house. While I was in the house, I really felt like he was playing all sides of everybody. I knew that was common, but I couldn’t really pinpoint it. And when you can’t accuse somebody, you just have to go with their word. I think that he’s playing a mean game. He brings other things in that shouldn’t be brought into the game. He brought my family into the game. He kept bringing race, sexual orientation, everything into the game that I didn’t think belonged there. Next, check out interview with Mirai Nagasu, who was evicted from Celebrity Big Brother 3 on Day 13.
