'Big Brother' Winner Taylor Hale Talks Her 'Monumental' Season 24 Win: 'There Is Value in Persevering'

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: CBS

Big Brother24 might be over, but theTaylor Halefandom has just only started “raising Hale.”

It’s barely been less than 24 hours since Hale, 27, ended her grueling and resilient 82-day run inside theBig Brotherhouse as thefirst Black woman to win the mainline series, but she’s already getting used to seeing her face all over Twitter.

“Apparently they call themselves the ‘Hale Raisers’, which I love. Tell them to keep raising Hale,” Hale, 27, tells PEOPLE exclusively on Monday. “But it reminds me that the core instincts that I had, the assumptions that I had about myself, the way that I present myself and communicate with other people, it was not the person I was first understood to be when I was in that house.”

“And knowing that people were able to see that, that just shows me that I’m not doing anything wrong,” Hale continues. “I’m not the villain that even I was convinced for a little bit that I was. Knowing that the support is there, it means the world.”

Hale, a personal stylist and awarded pageant queen, won the hearts of CBS viewers across the country asBB24’s fan-voted America’s Favorite Player on Sunday night, making her the first houseguest in the history of the series to take home both prizes for combined winnings of $800,000.

But ultimately, she never allowed her kindness to waiver, even after finding out an ally considered making an all-white alliance — all of which she touched on in her moving final plea to jurors.

In an 8-1 vote, Hale became the first Black woman to see the confetti fall after two decades of the mainBig Brotherseries. She’s leaving the game not just as a champion, but the people’s champion — and she knew aboutthose fan camstoo!

“I can’t wait to keep engaging. There’s all these fan edits, and it’s weird to see myself in theBig Brotherhouse,” Hale says through laughter, joking that she’s only getting “a little messy” with her Twitter likes in the real world again.

CBS

How has the day after the win been for you?

Hale: I’ve barely even had time to think of breathing. It’s a lot of talking about my gameplay and reflecting on the game and realizing how big my win is. When you’re in it, you don’t realize how monumental these things feel. And when you start saying the words out loud, now it’s starting to sink in I did the job that I came here to do. It’s weighing on me a lot heavier than it was at first. It was a shock at first.

What’s the first thing you did when you walked out those doors and had a second to yourself?

I took a very deep breath of fresh air and I looked at every tree that was around me. I was so happy I was no longer seeing the backyard and the grass. But outside of sitting for press, being debriefed and everything, I got back to my hotel. I had my phone, and my best friend flew out from DC… and I just sat there and I hugged her and we cried a little bit. Not because of my win and what it means for the two of us — she’s also a Black woman — but because she and I realized how important our friendship is to each other. And she’s been the one who has been manning my social media while I’ve been gone, so she has seen, not only the episodes, but she’s been on the receiving end of a lot of the conversation that’s happened about me online. This woman is like a sister to me. So seeing the impact that all of my moves and experiences had on her, it made me realize that my [win] is not just my own, it’s impacted so many more people. Having that moment with her, it made it real again.

Your finale speech was one of the strongest of the night. Some fans on Twitter were comparing it to Dan’s funeral speech from BB14.Do you think that speech will go down with some of the greats?

It sounds like it, but the thing that’s so special about that speech is that it wasn’t about gameplay. It wasn’t about manipulation. It was just about the honest truth. There were nuggets in there that everybody could resonate with. When I was talking about the women in the game and how I wanted to support them, even when they didn’t want to support me, how I was combating narratives about me, how I was pinned as a bully when it was never the case. I just wanted to send a message of resiliency and honesty and that’s the same game that Monte said he was playing, but I was the one that actually had to reap the repercussions of it. So to overcome that and be able to put it all together in the end, and not make people on the jury feel like I was guilting them into a vote, but just talking about the truth. I think when it comes to going out in history, I would not be shocked if people continue to mention my name, which is so stupid to say out loud. That sounds so ridiculous.

Tiffany’s a big fan of you and you met her last night. What was that like?

First, she’s a lot smaller than I thought. You’d never think that looking at her. Oh my God, I adore her. But there were so many moments where, because the game I had to play was so defensive, I was always fighting for my life in that house. I thought that Tiffany would be disappointed in my game and every day I was like, “I just want Tiffany to like me. I just want her want to hang out with me. I just want to make her proud, my game playing and to get out of that house and know that she had actually been rooting for me since day one, since all the preseason things came out.” That made my day because that is someone that I really wanted to earn the respect of and to know I did it early on, you just can’t replicate that type of feeling.

Is there a moment in your game that you’re most excited to watch back?

I do plan on watching it back. I’ve gotten some warnings from friends and family. So instead of having to take a break for the first couple weeks, I think my plan as of now is to get the synopsis and to see what went down, how things kind of played out. But then I think I need to just take my time really digesting everything, and maybe from there I’ll have to reanalyze relationships that I have with people, or who knows? Maybe it’ll be water under the bridge.

Oh, I was miserable… Joseph really was my rock, my sanity. He didn’t need to be in the beginning. So knowing that my initial assumption about Joseph not turning on me was true, had I known circumstances were different, I probably would not have ended up in a second temporary showmance. But the “Jaylor” liking, me liking the “Jaylor” tweets, I truly have such a soft spot for the guy and I’m hopeful that whether we’re friends or something more, we’re going to be deeply, deeply connected forever now.

Whenyou look back at all you’ve went through and all you accomplished in this game, what do you hope yourBig Brothervictory can mean for kids watching at home? What do you hope they learn from your win?

Thinking about these Lays chips that you had this season, are there any flavors you’ve been missing out on or ready to try outside of the house? Or did they provide you with any flavor you wanted?

I got to get in there and have a little conversation with them. But when it comes to Lays, I’m not a Ruffles girl, I don’t like flavors, I just want the classic original Lays potato chips and nothing else. That’s when I’m the happiest girl.

source: people.com