Vanessa Rousso Bubbles In Third At Big Brother 17

Vanessa Rousso‘s time on the 17th season of Big Brother has come to a close, and unfortunately for her the 32 year-old poker pro finished the 17 person competition in third place. This means she effectively bubbled the show, and while Steve Moses won the $500,000 top prize, and Liz Nolan received $50,000 for finishing runner-up, Vanessa Rousso had to leave empty-handed.
Reviewing her time spent inside the Big Brother household, Washington Post reporter Emily Yahr noted that Rousso’s manipulation and control of events made her hugely unpopular amongst her fellow contestants. Nevertheless, Rousso was acknowledged as a “wild card who infused the game with some much-needed drama”, with Yahr stating that “even if you despised Vanessa, which many viewers did, at least she kept things entertaining”.
Nevertheless, Vanessa Rousso ultimately fell victim of a cunning piece of manipulation herself, with eventual winner Steve Moses having assured her they “were cool for the final two”, only to evict Rousso at the last. Moses said his decision was simple because in his opinion she was the “single most brilliant female player this game has ever seen”, and her continued presence would almost certainly have meant his losing.
That said, Steve Moses had nothing but praise to say about Rousso, describing her as “a close friend”, and stating his “obscene amount of respect for her”. That’s why having her evicted proved such a painful decision in the end, and as he explains:
“..the thought of getting rid of someone who I was so close with really makes my stomach hurt. When I came into the house, I thought it’d be fun making these big backstabbing moves and I was very wrong about that”.
Following her eviction, Vanessa Rousso finally revealed her profession as a professional poker player, dispelling the story she had told her housemates all summer long of being a DJ. She also revealed she had earned $3,530,832 from live tournament since 2005, placing her at number 5 on ‘Women Poker’s All Time Money List‘. Rousso later received a tweet from the women’s number one, Vanessa Selbst, a known gay poker player, who wrote:
“Wow so brutal, gg @VanessaRousso. Such a beautifully played game. #BB17. Way to represent for queer poker-playing Vanessas across the world!