ON TV
“Big Brother,” 8 p.m. Wednesdays, 9 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Sundays, CBS
Audrey Middleton, of Villa Rica, was a groundbreaking character on the 17th season of CBS’ summer reality show “Big Brother.” She wasn’t the first person to lie and try to cover it up. She wasn’t the first to isolate herself from the rest of the group. She wasn’t the first to be evicted as a foregone conclusion.
But she was the first transgender contestant on the enduring CBS summer series, which keeps people in a house with dozens of cameras trained on them 24/7. They are forced to eliminate someone each week until a single winner takes home $500,000 more than three months later.
“It was a really unique experience although I didn’t play the best game,” Middleton said last week in a phone interview less than 24 hours after being booted from the house in a near-unanimous vote. With 16 contestants, she was the fourth one cut.
“I still got to prove myself that I could come out of my shell,” she said. “I came out on national television. I got to exemplify the willingness to show this kind of courage.”
The 25-year-old digital media consultant grew up as Adam Middleton but in recent years calls herself Audrey. CBS filmed her family watching the show and giving her complete support. When told that, she said, “I’m so glad people got to see them. They’re amazing!”
She told the houseguests about being transgender on the first day in the house last month.
“I really wanted to get it off my chest,” Middleton said. “We’re playing a game that is extremely manipulative and deceitful. I didn’t want negative connotations with my character in the game, using transgender in a weird or negative way.”
To her surprise, she didn’t sense anybody was using her transgender status against her. And during the edited shows, which air three times a week, CBS didn’t reveal any negative comments from the houseguests about her gender even behind her back.
Middleton said she believes her departure was not personal. She said she simply didn’t engender enough trust among the other 15 players. An early alliance fell apart. She blatantly lied at least twice and was called out.
Near the end of her time in the house, Middleton felt so bereft, she skipped the “Power of Veto” announcement, where she knew she’d be set up to go home.
She said the only place she could truly be alone was the diary room, where people do “confessionals” for the cameras.
“It was overwhelming,” she said. “It’s hard to find privacy in that house. You’re in an environment where you’re put under psychological discomfort.”
She spent hours last week wrapped in a blanket wearing sunglasses, talking to nobody and hiding in the diary room.
“Some people deal with stress with flying colors,” Middleton said. “I did not. It was very hard for me to deal with the death of myself in the competition. I couldn’t process. I couldn’t move.”
In retrospect, Middleton said she clearly made mistakes providing false information and feeding gossip to the wrong people. She said she could have laid back and stayed under the radar as some players tend to do early on.
“But I’ve been a radical my whole life,” she said. “It’s hard for me to allow my fate to be controlled by anyone else. It’s like a defense mechanism. I’ve been fighting for this independence, to be the person I am today. So it’s hard for me to let someone speak to me a certain way and not defend myself.”
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