DETROIT — Taylor Hale won $800,000 on Sunday night after being crowned champion — as well as America's Favorite Houseguest — on the season finale of "Big Brother," and the Detroit-born former Miss Michigan USA's head is still spinning.
"It feels amazing. I'm still reeling," Hale said Monday on the phone from Los Angeles, while the ink on her giant check was still drying. "I need an accountant, I need a lawyer, I still need to figure all of that out. But the feelings are amazing."
Hale, a 27-year-old personal stylist, made "Big Brother" history with her victory: not only was she the first contestant to win both the $750,000 grand prize and the "America's Favorite" title — that's good for an additional $50,000 — but she was also the first Black woman to be crowned "Big Brother" champ, a title she takes very seriously, and a motivating factor on her way to her win.
"I said if I'm going to go on the show, I have to do this not just for me, I have to do this to vindicate the other women on this show who should have gotten so much more than they did," said Hale, who currently resides in West Bloomfield Township. "A lot of them experienced things similar to what I experienced: it was microaggressions, they had bullying, they were targeted way too early, and the things that would be seen as strengths in other people were seen as weaknesses, or things that people should be threatened by in them."
So Hale, who prior to joining the cast described herself as a "passive" viewer of "Big Brother," set out to right those wrongs.
She was inspired to try out for the show, a reality competition in which 16 houseguests are cut off from the outside world and participate in a three-month power struggle, after seeing a TikTok of Detroiter Tiffany Mitchell, who was a contestant on "Big Brother 23" in 2021.
Mitchell was part of a historic all-Black alliance called "The Cookout," a six-member group which controlled the game and led to the first Black "Big Brother" winner being crowned when Xavier Prather, who originally hails from Kalamazoo, became champ. Mitchell was awarded the America's Favorite Houseguest title, and a $50,000 cash prize.
But the success of The Cookout didn't make things any easier for Hale, she said.
"I knew coming into this game that hopefully, after 'The Cookout,' I would not be seen in the same light that other Black women were. But from day one, I had to carry that burden," Hale said. "I decided that is what I was going to do, so that the rest of the Black women who play this game have the freedom to play it the way they want to play it, not because of larger stereotypes.
"So to have gone through what I've gone through, to have carried that mission all the way to the end, it is just the most rewarding feeling in the world," said Hale, who survived six evictions this season, more than any other houseguest. "I can say that I did it, and I can say that other people saw me, and not only other Black women but the rest of the world, and I hope they've learned from what they had to see this season."
Hale, who was 2021's Miss Michigan USA, said there were times when the burden she carried was stressful, and she wondered if she had taken on too much. Maybe someone else could break down that wall instead of her?
But she kept pushing because she knew what she was doing was important, both inside and outside the confines of the "Big Brother" universe.
"We've had 24 seasons up until now, when Black women just keep trying, and I just wanted that ceiling to shatter," she said of the show, which has been on the air since 2000. "And I don't know, I think as of last night it's pretty broken up on the ground right now. People are stepping on a whole lot of glass."
On Sunday's finale, Hale beat Monte Taylor, a personal trainer from Delaware, after a jury of evicted houseguests awarded her an 8-1 victory. Taylor's runner-up title netted him $75,000 in prize money. Matthew Turner, a rugmaker and thrift store owner from Massachusetts, came in third place.
Taylor had the requisite competition wins and popularity within the house that normally lead to victory on "Big Brother." But in her final speech to the jury, Hale stressed the resilience in her game, the obstacles she had to overcome in the house, and said a win for her would signal a change in "Big Brother" going forward.
And it just may.
"I do think this almost fully social game that I played is going to change the course of the game," said Hale, a 2013 graduate of Detroit Country Day High School. "And I think that people from all walks of life are going to see that they can play this game, too, and be successful, and they don't have to be comp beasts" — that's "Big Brother"-speak for a strong physical competitor — "to sit Final 2 and take home that grand prize."
Hale's argument was that "Big Brother" is a holistic game, not a game just based on wins and evictions, which she finds "boring," she said.
"This game has been on the air for too long to do the same thing over and over again," she said. "It's the people who are able to play a social game that surprise people in the end, that makes a story click."
While her jury speech was persuasive — she said she came up with it a day ahead of the finale — Hale found out when talking to her fellow castmates after the finale that her victory was in the bag even without it.
"And that truly blows my mind," said Hale, who said she figured, at best, she might have been able to eke out a 5-4 jury vote if things went her way. "But I'm proud that people see the truth and honesty in my journey and wanted that to be the story of Season 24."
Next up, Hale said she's going to spend the next two weeks in Los Angeles, and she's hoping to make a career pivot into entertainment news.
Then she'll come home to fully decompress, partially watch her season so she knows how things went down, and most of all, enjoy autumn. "Fall in Michigan is my favorite season, and the whole state is beautiful," Hale said.
She's already looking forward to taking a trip to Franklin Cider Mill, one of her favorite fall spots, where the air is crisp and the apple cider is sweet — but not quite as sweet as a cool $800,000.
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