Last Thursday, local business owner Kail Harbick was the latest houseguest to get evicted from the reality show “Big Brother,” in which a group of strangers live together in a house, competing for a $500,000 grand prize.
Not long after winning the coveted Head of Household title during the game’s first week, Kail – along with her friend Jen – became a frequent target of “Evel” Dick and the other houseguests, and Kail and Jen made it into the “Big Brother” record books when they were nominated for eviction together three weeks in a row, with Kail getting evicted on the third week.
The Emerald sat down with Kail and her husband, Darin, to talk about her time on “Big Brother,” life after the show and controversial, volatile houseguest “Evel” Dick.
Oregon Daily Emerald: So how does it feel to be back?
Kail Harbick: It feels wonderful to be back! I’m really glad to be back with my husband and three kids, and I actually missed the businesses [laughs]. I dont’ know why – it’s so much work – but I did.
ODE: Have you been busy getting back in the swing of things?
KH: I have been busy; I did a radio tour around the United States, and answering a lot of fan-mail, and catching up with family and friends. Darin and I – we have so many more hours of conversation that needs to happen so that we can catch up on 50 days being away from each other.
ODE: Have you watched the show at all since being back?
KH: I’m keeping current (by watching new episodes), plus I’m on episode four. I want to get all of it watched before I go back for the season finale.
ODE: So what’s it like watching yourself on TV?
KH: [laughs] That is a very odd feeling, and sometimes it’s kinda hard to watch, because you’re kinda like “Oh, no!” But it’s fun. A surreal feeling.
ODE: Have you been shocked or surprised by the way people have been portrayed on the show?
KH: I haven’t been on the Internet or heard too much about how the other houseguests have been portrayed…I don’t really know yet how each of us has been portrayed.
ODE: So you haven’t gotten on the Internet and read things people are saying about you?
KH: No, I haven’t. Any information I get has been filtered through my husband and my mom. I know there’s some controversies, but I don’t know the full detail.
ODE: Have your opinions of anyone changed since being out of the house?
KH: Oh, well…[laughs] No… (to Darin) Which one did you say I trusted that I shouldn’t have? Dustin, right?
Darin Harbick: Well, she hasn’t watched any of the Showtime “After Dark”…she hasn’t watched any of how they talk about her behind her back, or what they say about her. She’s only seen what they show on the four episodes of the show (she’s seen so far).
ODE: So you know about the whole America’s Player twist (in which one player takes directions from the voting public)?
KH: Yes; I found that out the morning after I left. On (“The Early Show”) it was Julie (Chen) that told me. For me, as a houseguest, I don’t think the America’s Player really affected me, so I was really excited for America to be able to have a say in the game and participate and have a lot of fun with that. But I think pretty soon it’s gonna start affecting Eric’s game. You know, there was always that phantom vote out there that we kept wondering about.
DH: It actually affected the outcome of your game, too, to an extent. You just don’t know what.
ODE: How do you think the current houseguests would react if they found out about Eric as America’s Player?
KH: I think the longer he goes, the more hurt they’re going to be. They’re gonna feel that they were really back-stabbed by him.
ODE: Are you rooting for anyone in particular to win now that you’re out of the game?
KH: Yes, Jen. Jen needs to win [laughs].
ODE: Do you think your friendship with Jen will last outside the house?
KH: I sure hope so. I’m definitely persuing a friendship outside the house with Jen. Absolutely.
ODE: Anyone else, or just Jen?
KH: Nope, just Jen [laughs].
ODE: Have you talked to anyone else since being out of the house?
KH: I have not. That is something I want to do, is contact Mike and Joe. I don’t know how I feel yet contacting Carol, since I was the one that was HOH that week. So I don’t know.
ODE: Are you glad that you were able to leave the house and see your family as opposed to being sequestered in the Jury House?
KH: That was absolutely actual prayer of mine. “Lord, if I can’t make it to the final two or three or four, bring me home in week five so I can go home.” I would have absolutely died if I went to that Jury House, especially on the sixth week. I did not want that – a huge fear of mine. I’m so glad to be home in week five.
ODE: When you got into the house, did people seem to have any misconceptions about Oregon? I know “Evel” Dick called it Rainbow Oregon a lot.
KH: Well, technically this is Rainbow, Ore. He is correct on that. I was trying to explain to him the whole thing with McKenzie Valley – that there’s McKenzie Bridge, Rainbow, Blue River, Finn Rock, Nimrod. So I was naming them all, and I said technically I’m in Rainbow. So that’s where he got that from.
DH: He got that one thing and he stuck with it forever.
KH: He doesn’t forget anything you say, and he will pound it home to you, and he’ll even twist it just a slight bit too. So you say something, and there’s a lot of truth to it, but then he twists it, until it’s hard to call him a liar, yet he’s lying.
ODE: What do you think about Dick being one of the most popular players in the online poll right now?
KH: I think (America) now likes him because they don’t so much like the other houseguests. That’s kind of unfortunate because the true “Evel” came out during the third and fourth week when I was in the house.
DH: He was still the most popular then.
KH: Was he still the most popular then?
DH: He’s been one of the most popular ones throughout the whole entire season.
KH: Oh…Maybe they like a villain [laughs]. I don’t know.
ODE: What was it like being on camera 24/7?
KH: Well, I never forgot that they were there, but I got used to them. You can get really lazy after a while, and you get tired. You can be like “Oh, I’ll just change here,” but no, you can’t. You have to go underneath the sheets. There’s no one there, so it’s weird. It’s kind of a weird feeling, but you never forgot they were there.
What I didn’t realize when I watched the few episodes I’ve watched is how close in those cameras got to your face, because they’re so far away. You don’t realize (how much they zoom in).
ODE: Was it difficult adjusting to the lack of privacy with the cameras and the other houseguests?
KH: No, the lack of privacy was only bothersome when you were talking to another houseguest in private, because there was never any privacy there. In the beginning, I think the hardest thing was getting used to being away from your family.
ODE: At the beginning of the game, you were doing really well; you had a strong alliance and you were Head of Household. What do you think went wrong?
KH: What went wrong was “Evel” really, really tried to connect with me, and he really wanted a friendship with me, and a relationship. I always kept him at arm’s length away; my gut feeling was like, “I don’t know about him. I don’t want to divulge everything to him.” And he was really upset that I would never talk g
ame to him. So he tried over and over and over, and I just kept kinda rejecting him over and over, where after that he was so mad at me that he was wanting revenge. It was on a personal level – he took it very personally.
DH: The first five days that we didn’t get to see – there was a lot that happened in those first five days that no one knows about that shaped her gameplay.
KH: Yeah, he wanted to know every single little detail about me, down to “When did you get your ear pierced? How old were you? Why did you do that? What did your husband think? Did you ask your husband? Tell me everything about your kids, tell me everything about you.” I’m like, “You know what? I’ve only known you for like three days, four days.” It’s kinda like “Whoa!”
ODE: Do you think he wanted personal information to use against you?
KH: My gut feeling was I couldn’t trust him. I don’t know if he would have used personal information, but now, looking back, my gut feeling was right. I think he would have used all of that, as he is with Amber. You know, like “You did drugs,” and everything. And I just didn’t want to feel like he owned me, I didn’t want to be obligated to him. And that’s what he wanted – he wanted me to be obligated to him – and I just wouldn’t do it.
ODE: Do you think the current houseguests are doing the right thing by ignoring him and leaving the room when he throws fits?
KH: I understand why they’re ignoring him: because deep down they’re scared to death of him, and scared of him humilliating them on national TV more than what they’re doing to themselves. So I understand why they’re doing that. If it’s right or wrong strategy-wise, I’m not sure.
ODE: So would you say that getting on Dick’s bad side was your downfall?
KH: That was the biggest downfall. I kept saying in the Diary Room, “There are 13 other houseguests here. Why is he choosing me? Why has he picked me out of the crowd to be so intrigued with and wanting to know every little detail about my life?” I just couldn’t understand why he picked me out of the crowd, but he did. And that was what I was dealt with and the way things turned out.
ODE: How did you deal with his angry outbursts that were directed at you?
KH: I mostly kind of just ignored him and then went into a room and took the sheets over my head and cried [laughs], and tried to keep a poker face so that he didn’t know that he got to me, but he always did.
ODE: What did you miss most about the outside world when you were in the house?
KH: My husband and children, absolutely.
ODE: Were there any small things that we take for granted that you missed in the house?
KH: Espresso coffee and iced tea [laughs]. I really missed those two things every morning.
ODE: What was it like eating slop for a week at a time?
KH: The slop was not good. As a matter of fact, the first time I went on slop, I think I lost it mentally on the third day. I wasn’t eating. I was eating probably about 900 calories a day, if not less. I just kind of stopped eating. The second time on slop I knew, OK, I had to eat to keep going. It was horrible. It tasted bad. It’s not good.
ODE: Did Big Brother tell you what was in it?
KH: It’s chock-full of vitamins. Tons of vitamins.
ODE: Would you rather have had PB&J for a week?
KH: I would have. I think taste-wise I would have been able to handle that better.
ODE: Houseguests from previous seasons have often talked about how boring the house is. Was being in the house a boring experience?
KH: It is extremely boring, and there’s a lot of downtime. Sundays are hard days because it seems like the Big Brother staff is gone and we’re just left there. They let us sleep in Sundays, so that took half the day. Wednesday there’s really nothing going on. The lock-outs and lock-ins were excruciating, painful. When it comes to those times, all you have to do is think. So you either think about the game or you think about what’s back home. Nothing to divert your attention. There’s no television, Internet, phone, radio, books – nothing. Just four walls to stare at, or people.
ODE: You said you get to sleep in on Sundays. What time do they usually wake you up?
KH: They wake us up at 10, 11 in the morning with music, which is always nice.
ODE: A lot of people say reality TV isn’t really “real.” After appearing on a reality show yourself, would you say that “Big Brother” is “real”?
KH: It is a reality show, but it is also a television show, and we are there to entertain, and the producers are there to entertain the public. Is everything that you see on television 100 percent correct that really happened in the house? I would have to disagree with that. You take what you can, but the reality of it is we were all strangers and we all went in there not knowing each other.
ODE: Would you say there’s a lot of creative editing in putting the show together?
KH: I would say that they work really, really hard. I don’t think they ever slept. And I was surprised at how hard they worked and by how hard they would make us work. They would make us wake up for the Diary Room at 1:00 in the morning, and I’m like, “What are you guys doing? You’re still working?” And they’re like, “Well, we need this line.” A lot of cute things, from what I saw…kinda had a chuckle a few times on how they did a few things…it was kinda funny.
ODE: Is there a person in the Diary Room you talk to?
KH: It’s a camera and a microphone. You don’t ever see a person.
ODE: Is it true that the houseguests get compensated for each week they’re in the house? Or are you not able to talk about that?
KH: No, I’m sorry.
DH: You can’t?
KH: Uh-uh.
ODE: Why did you want to be on “Big Brother”?
KH: I was fascinated with the show since season one. And you know how you just get that gut feeling “that’s something I can do”? I had that feeling all the seasons, but season five was when I started to audition. It’s just one of those things that deep down you’re like, “I know I can do this, and I know I can get on.” I kept persisting and not taking no for an answer.
ODE: Is that why you think you got on the show this season? Because you didn’t give up?
KH: That played a factor, I believe, because they do want houseguests that really, really want to be there because it is so excrutiating and hard. They don’t want someone to get there and just leave. My interview skills have improved immensely going through that process each time, so I was able to critique and get better and improve on my interview skills.
ODE: Do you have any advice or suggestions to others who want to apply to be on the show?
KH: Yeah…whoever applies needs to know who they are and what role they’re going to play. I knew that I was playing the married woman with three children, conservative, Christian, Republican. And I knew that, so I didn’t deviate from that. Make sure you’re just really cut-and-dry on who you are and be very talkative and very serious in your interviews.
ODE: The Wikipedia entry for “Big Brother” says that on day 34, you told the show’s producers that you wanted to leave the house, but that they talked you out of it.
DH: That clip came on the live feeds. That’s how they heard about it.
KH: There was a day after “Evel” really ripped on Jen. He was in the same room as Jen and I. He came in, and Jen and I were on the bed, and he ripped on her really bad. Then I left while he continued, and then when it was all over I went in (the Diary Room) and had a pretty extensive talk, and eventua
lly I got to the head people and had an extensive talk with them. And I don’t think at the time I said “I’m gonna leave this time,” but I did say “If that happens to me, I will leave. He’s been really horrible with me, but if it’s ever to that extent, just so you know, I will leave.”
ODE: Who’s your favorite “Big Brother” houseguest from previous seasons?
KH: Out of all the seasons…I really like Lisa. And Jason is right up there with me as well.
ODE: Do you have a favorite season?
KH: I like season one. And everyone thinks I’m crazy because nobody liked season one. But I guess I like it because everyone got along so well. By season two, everyone who ran season one was no longer around.
ODE: What would you have done with the $500,000 grand prize if you had won?
DH: [laughs] I know what I said.
KH: What did you say?
DH: I said we’re going to pay off our business debts.
KH: Well, like all little girls have a dream of owning a castle…I have 54 acres…I wanted like a huge down-payment to get a loan to build an authentic 19-room castle to rent out to the public.
ODE: What was it like wearing a bunny suit during the end of your stay in the house? What was it? Five days?
DH: 120 hours.
KH: I tried to get creative with it. The worst part was the bunny ears. I tried to make it into a headband…it was really hot during the day, and at night little gnats were attracted to that fur, so you could just never go outside.
ODE: Was Jen an inspiration with the creative ways she wore the unitard earlier in the season?
KH: [laughs] Yes…She handled that so well. She’s such a perfect trooper that she was the absolute best one to get that. I couldn’t imagine if anyone else got it.
ODE: Are you guys fed pretty well in the house when you’re not on slop?
KH: They supply us with food once a week.
ODE: Do you get to request food at all?
KH: We try to request. We’re always requesting, but we never got anything we asked for.
DH: So you had that week’s supply and nothing else?
KH: Right. So if you ran out of bread, you were out of bread until the next Friday, when the food competition is played out. So you could be out of something for a couple days.
ODE: During one of the veto competitions, players had to hide their veto symbol somewhere in the house, and everyone tore up the house looking for those symbols. Who cleaned the house up again?
KH: All the houseguests had to clean up. I helped in the kitchen, because everything in the bedroom was personal belongings and I couldn’t tell whose was what. It only took like 2 hours to clean all of that up. It took 5 hours to mess up.
ODE: During the Head of Household competition after Nick was evicted, a plane with a banner flew over the yard, which caused a stir in the house. Were there a lot of planes, and we never saw them on TV?
KH: Yes. The banners didn’t start coming until the week that Nick was on the block. They hire some people to watch for banners, so as soon as they hear that there’s a banner coming they lock us in. So we’d be inside and hearing the buzzing, and we’re like, “Would someone please tell the public not to send those? ‘Cause we’re never going to be able to see them ’cause we’re locked inside.” That week there was probably about four or five a day. Then maybe one or two when Eric and I were nominated. We’re not allowed to see them.
ODE: If there were theoretically another All-Stars season of “Big Brother,” would you return?
KH: I think so. I think I would be more mentally prepared…know what to expect. Anytime you do anything a second time around, you do a lot better. So yeah, I think so.
It was just a surreal experience. When you’re on the show, you don’t feel like you’re on a television show, so it’s kinda been really fun out of the house and watching it.
ODE: Was there ever the knowledge that millions of people were watching you at that very second?
KH: No, we always try to hint in the Diary Room like “How’s the show doing? How many viewers?” But they would never let on to anything like that, so you never knew. We’re like “Oh, I’m sure they cancelled Showtime; we’re so boring” [laughs].
ODE: Are you like a local celebrity now?
KH: Not here, locally. They already knew me before I went. In town – in Eugene – I do get recognized basically everywhere I go. And everyone has been so friendly and nice and want to shake my hand. I received flowers today from a fan from Redmond who bought tropical flowers from Hawaii.
ODE: Do you really find out just before leaving for the show that you’re going to be on it?
KH: It is really like that. They only let you know you’re in the top 20, and then they come out and let you know that they’re doing a field package to take back on the top 20, and then they’re going to decide from there, but in all actuality they came and got me.
DH: Four hours. They said, “OK, you’re going to be on a plane in four hours.” We had an idea, but it was never for sure.
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