Natalie Cunial was playing too many sides too late in the game, and the 28-year-old bikini barista from Salem, OR became the seventh individual houseguest evicted from Big Brother 9 during last night's live broadcast of the CBS reality show.
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Sheila won last week's HoH endurance competition by striking a deal with Natalie and Ryan Quicksall, a 27-year-old college student from Columbus, OH -- pledging she wouldn't nominate either for eviction if they let her win her first HoH.
Sheila held true to that promise, instead nominating her former "perfect-match" partner Adam Jasinski, a 29-year-old public relations manager from Del Ray Beach, FL, and Sharon Obermueller, a 23-year-old realtor from Olathe, KS. However Sheila's plan all along was to backdoor Natalie, whom she saw as her biggest threat remaining in the house.
Once Adam won the Power of Veto competition during Tuesday night's broadcast, he removed himself from the block and Sheila put Natalie on the block as his replacement nominee. However since Natalie felt she was still part of the "Team Christ" alliance with Sheila, Adam and Ryan -- she thought she would be safe for at least another week and Sharon would instead be booted.
"I feel very safe being up on the block," said Natalie following the PoV ceremony. "We're still sticking to the plan and I'm going to be the pawn this week. Sharon is going home."
But since you can never be so sure when you're on the block, Natalie constantly hounded Ryan and Adam -- the only two houseguests who would vote at this week's eviction ceremony -- to assure her safety. While Natalie had never really betrayed Adam and Ryan, they had heard from Sharon and Sheila that Natalie had openly discussed getting rid of the two guys and instead going to the Final 3 with the other two ladies.
In order to clear the air and give Natalie a chance to defend herself, Ryan and Adam called a house meeting. However Natalie knew something was up and refused to show for the meeting, instead retreating to the house's bathroom area to dye her hair. So Ryan and Adam simply moved the meeting to the bathroom area, where they confronted Natalie about playing both sides of the house.
"Well my true loyalty does stay to the two boys," said Natalie, the obvious answer considering Ryan and Adam seemingly held all the week's eviction power.
However that was not the answer Sheila wanted to hear, and she point-blank asked Natalie that if she were to stay in the house, would she nominate Sheila for eviction next week?
"If I win HoH, I would put you up on the block," answered Natalie, digging her own grave deeper.
Ryan then reiterated Natalie can't play both sides of the house, and she once again professed her loyalty to him and Adam.
"You guys know that I've always been true to you two," said Natalie. "That's the way it always has been."
RELATED LINK: 'BIG BROTHER' SHOWMANCES NOWThe meeting concluded and Adam and Ryan thought the incident was behind them, but Natalie approached the two guys once Sheila and Sharon had left. Adam and Ryan explained Natalie had been playing "way too hard" since her former "perfect-match" partner Matt McDonald was evicted four weeks ago. Natalie started to cry and openly blamed Sharon for planting the thoughts in Ryan and Adam's heads that she's not loyal.
"No matter what they think my loyalty stays right here and it always has and it's always going to be," said Natalie. "Period. End of discussion."
The three then hugged before Natalie moved to the kitchen and called-out Sharon in-front of Adam and Ryan. Sharon correctly stated that Natalie did in fact discuss ousting Adam and Ryan while the three women were sunbathing, and the guys seemed unsure what they should do.
Adam and Ryan retreated to the HoH room and Adam asked Sheila if they could instead evict Natalie the following week. Sheila said they "can't risk that" since Natalie is a "bigger fish" than Sharon. She also made it clear that she wanted both Adam and Ryan to vote to evict Natalie so she wouldn't have to break a 1-1 tie and thus have the "blood" for Natalie's eviction on her own hands.
Sheila and Adam started arguing, he called her a bitch and she threw him out of the room.
Prior to last night's live eviction vote, Natalie made one last plea for her safety but instead only dug a deeper hole for herself in Sheila's eyes.
"First I'd like to say thank you Big Brother for this experience of a lifetime that I'll never forget," she said. "To my boys, I am sorry I've made some mistakes. But I love you and you know my loyalty stands with you. So please, please keep me in the house so I can continue to play with you."
Ryan then cast his eviction vote to boot Natalie, while Adam cast his vote to evict Sharon. With the vote at a tie, it was up to Sheila as HoH to determine who would be evicted. Natalie seemed to sense what Sheila's decision would be.
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Natalie cried and said her goodbyes before exiting the house, where she was met by host Julie Chen.
"I really don't know what happened," Natalie told Julie. "I really was going to be loyal to those boys and I'm really kind of shocked right now that they let it go a tie and I ultimately was evicted. I'm just in a bit of shock. I was going to be loyal to those boys. All I think I did was strategic. I was kind of playing both sides, but I think that's probably what cost me my game."
Natalie added she was "very upset" with Ryan and Adam because both had told her they were going to vote to keep her.
"So I thought for sure I'd be in there," she said.
Julie asked why once Matt was evicted Natalie seemed to adopt the strategy of playing all sides -- including her "Team Christ" alliance -- against one another.
"I did that because I just wanted to protect the boys. I didn't want the girls knowing that I was with the boys," explained Natalie.
Prior to Natalie's eviction, CBS aired footage from the Big Brother 9 jury house for the second week in a row.
It included James Zinkand arriving following last week's eviction, which gave his former "perfect-match" partner and current girlfriend Chelsia Hart mixed emotions because she was happy to see him but also wanted him to win the show's $500,000 grand prize.
After James, Chelsia, Matt and Joshuah Welch watched James' eviction video, he immediately turned on Chelsia and accused her for being the reason he was targeted for eviction since she was so negative after being booted.
"I was the residue of Chelsia!" said James, which didn't sit too well with Chelsia, who left the room in tears. James went and apologized and the two reconciled.
Following Natalie's eviction, the four remaining houseguests -- minus Sheila, who as the outgoing HoH, was deemed ineligible to compete -- competed in the ninth season's seventh individual HoH competition.
Dubbed "Fact or Fiction," Julie would read statements about either Big Brother's ninth-season houseguests or the house itself. They'd then have to decide if the statement was fact or fiction. The houseguest with the most points after seven statements would be crowned the new HoH.
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"Everyone knows [Jacob Heald] and Sharon and Ryan and [Jen Diturno] were two pre-existing relationships in the Big Brother house," said Julie, reading the seventh and final statement. "But, there is a third pre-existing relationship still in the house."
Since there are only four houseguests left, Sharon answered "Fiction" and was presumably confident in her answer. Meanwhile, presumably knowing that Sharon would most likely choose the obvious answer and he needed to score a point if he wanted to force a tiebreaker, Ryan chose the least-likely answer, "Fact."
"The correct answer is fact. There is one other pre-existing relationship still in the house," said Julie, as a message on the bottom of the screen alerted viewers the statement was fact because "the guinea pigs" had a pre-existing relationship.
Ryan correctly answered the tiebreaker question and became the seventh individual HoH -- guaranteeing himself a spot in the Final 3.
"Who's the relationship in the house!?" excitedly asked Adam once the competition was over, and none of the houseguests knew the answer.
Big Brother 9's next episode will air Sunday, April 20 at 8PM ET/PT on CBS.
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio
