Celebrity Big Brother — officially titled Big Brother: Celebrity Edition — is an American reality competition series that premiered on CBS in 2018. It is a spin-off of Big Brother, CBS’s long-running summer reality franchise. The series follows the same core format but is adapted for a celebrity cast and has a significantly shorter run.
A group of celebrities, the HouseGuests, move into the Big Brother House for approximately three weeks, cut off from the outside world. They compete in Head of Household and Power of Veto competitions, with winners nominating others for eviction and the house voting players out one at a time.
The celebrity edition runs for around 25 to 29 days and features a cast of 11 to 12 celebrities. The runtime is far shorter than the main series, which typically runs 85 to 100 days with 16 houseguests. Evictions happen multiple times per week to keep pace with the tighter timeline. Additionally, evicted celebrities are not sequestered, meaning they can catch up on everything that happened before returning for the live finale. Viewers vote for “America’s Favorite HouseGuest,” who wins $25,000, while the overall winner takes home $250,000.
Notable past HouseGuests across the three seasons include Marissa Jaret Winokur (Season 1 winner), Tamar Braxton (Season 2 winner ), Miesha Tate (Season 3 winner), Omarosa Manigault, Shannon Elizabeth, Tom Green, Kandi Burruss, Lolo Jones, Joey Lawrence, Carson Kressley, Lamar Odom, and Chris Kirkpatrick.
Julie Chen Moonves hosts the series, reprising the role she has held on Big Brother since its US premiere in 2000. One of American television’s most recognisable reality competition hosts, she also previously co-hosted The Talk on CBS from 2010 to 2018.
