Joey Lawrence was far from bummed to have gotten evicted on “Celebrity Big Brother” on Saturday. As he told Julie Chen Moonves, he didn’t really know the game and was unprepared for all the drama that unfolded between the houseguests, really, in just the last week.
“Last season, there were a lot more people who were in the right mind to play this game,” Joey told Entertainment Weekly. “This year, people came in hot and emotional. These are grown adults throwing f-bombs. With all the stuff going on in the world today, people want to turn on the TV and watch people having fun with the game.”
In his exit interview on the show, Lawrence remarked that Lolo Jones “burns out,” which honestly is the most accurate description of her ever. But anyone who’s watched the live feeds in the past week knows that there was lots of name-calling and yelling not just from Lolo, but Tamar Braxton, Natalie Eva Marie, Kato Kaelin and Tom Green as well, which Joey found “really exhausting.” It got so bad that, as Tom revealed on the feeds, executive producer Allison Grodner spoke to multiple people individually on Saturday to tell them to cool it.
“The women are very emotional. It’s not fun when people are throwing personal insults and dropping f-bombs in the house. It’s pretty crazy,” Joey told EW. “They suck up all the energy in the room and then a few of them get extremely angry and personal. It’s really difficult to play with people like that. People tune into to be entertained, not watch people throw insults at one another.”
It wasn’t all bad times in the house for the “Blossom” alum though. He struck up a “cool friendship” with Ryan Lochte. “I was thankful for when I met Ryan,” he said. Not so much with Ricky Williams though. “There are a couple of sneaky, very manipulative guys like Rick,” he said. “I don’t know him personally and we didn’t have more genuine moments, which is unfortunate because you want to be able to get to know people. That’s part of the game.”
While he’s grateful for the opportunity to go on the show, Joey is happy to watch it from the comfort of his own home (and shower) now. And he gives the edge to Tamar to win it all.
“I don’t think Natalie and Lolo can really stand up to her,” he said. “She’s a very powerful person and likes to overpower you with her emotion, although Lolo is pretty much out of control most of the time. She’s not strong. Tamar is stronger than her. I would say Tamar at the moment unless something drastic happens.”
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