Murtz On The Scene: Exclusive Interview With Big Brother Canada 4‘s Joel Lefevre

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The day after he was evicted out of the Big Brother Canada 4 house, I had the chance to catch up with Joel Lefevre to discuss what happened. We chatted about a variety of topics including his decision not to self-evict, his thoughts on the POV competition that sank his game, and why he decided to call the brothers out in his final speech.

Check out the interview below!

Murtz Jaffer: Your emotions seemed to range quite a bit this week. You went from being defeated and on the verge of self-evicting to attempting to launch your own campaign to stay. What prompted you to turn the switch and try and stay instead of walk out?

Joel Lefevre: I think what prompted me to try and stay was my dream of being on this show. I had come so far and I was aware of how many people I had beaten to get cast as one of the houseguests. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I had walked out. I had to try everything within my power to try and stay, but unfortunately, it was my time to go.

MJ: When you decided to help the brothers in the pivotal veto competition that Tim ended up winning, what was your gameplan and how much do you regret it now?

JL: I have a lot of regrets about that POV competition. My idea was to work all angles to make sure that Kelsey and the brothers knew that I was with them. I swore to them that I wasn’t going to use the veto… but that was a lie. I was going to use it and I wanted to have the brothers go up if I won. The plan was for me to get ot the final round with Tim and Cassandra and then have both of them throw the POV to me. I thought that everyone was going to help me win and that was my own undoing…. Just the fact that I could have continued to play the middle in that competition. I should have just chosen a side. I should have known that Tim would have helped me beat Phil in the third round and I could have won.

MJ: There have been a lot of sour exits this season with Kelsey stealing Maddy’s duck, Mitch promising to vote for the Third Wheel if any of them made it to the end and, most recently, your final speech where you decided to call the brothers out. If someone were to say that Joel only had the guts to call the brothers out when he was on his way out, how would you respond?

JL: I would say that at that point, I knew I had nothing to lose. Until they told me that they had made the decision to evict me, there wasn’t a reason for me to go on the offensive. I had questions about the brothers throughout the game. It irritated me personally when they kept claiming that they played with honour and integrity when in actuality, they were just playing their own game. The fact is that you can’t be honest with everyone in there. You can’t be honest with everyone in there. It is impossible Everyone has moments of weakness and moments that they regret. It wasn’t fair for them to say they have integrity when they played without it. We all had moments where we acted differently. I felt it was fair for me to say that I wasn’t the only one who acted a little “sus” as they would say.

MJ: The glasses-wearing outsider has been on quite a streak in the American version of Big Brother with Ian Terry and Steve Moses both recently winning the U.S. versions of the show. Do you think that the other houseguests held Ian and Steve’s wins against you just because you fit into the same sort of profile or did this not make any impact?

JL: That was my fear going in. My fear that I was going to be labeled as the “Steve” or the “Ian.” People said that I resembled them in a lot of ways and that was something that frightened me. I don’t that is why I was evicted. It boiled down to the fact that I had my hands in too many pots on both sides of the house. When everyone started talking to each other, that’s when things went south.

MJ: Your strategy of playing the middle was working quite well until this past week. In fact, you seemed to be sitting pretty. What went wrong that basically destroyed your game?

JL: What went wrong and where things started to go south was at that POV competition when I just didn’t choose a side and go with it. The problem is that there comes a time when you have to choose a side. I thought that I could appeal to both sides and occasionally, you just have to made a decision. That was a pivotal moment and turned out to be my undoing.

MJ: In the house, you took many opportunities to go off on your own which was promptly followed by the houseguests comforting you. Why did you need the alone time?

JL: I needed the alone time to clear my head with all the stress that was going on in the game. The game goes a mile a minute. There are so manytimes where people are talking strategy and backbiting and it is a lot to process when people bombard you with information all the time. I needed time to decompress and relax from the stresses of that environment.

MJ: In your opinion, who is playing the best game?

JL: Cassandra. Cassandra is somebody who has done a phenomenal job of getting people on her side. While her competition performance hasn’t been stellar, from a strategic standpoint, she should get respect for the game that she has played. From a social standpoint, she might have made enemies but she has always managed to use her enemies to her benefit. I have to give her credit.

MJ: Knowing that the houseguests ended up evicting you, is there any part of you that wishes you had self-evicted?

JL: No. None, because that would have been the cowardly way to go. There were times that I was feeling low. I had to know that two votes in the Diary Room were definitely going against me. I stuck it out and did everything I could to make as many arguments in my campaign and I was just unsuccessful.

MJ: What is the biggest lesson you learned from being in the Big Brother house?

JL: The biggest lesson was to be patient and know that no matter what situation you find yourself in, it is a matter of perspective in how you handle it. Being on slop, people pulling you in different directions and people upsetting you… it is all about perspective and I have learned to be more patient and to appreciate some of the smaller things in life that people in the real world take for granted. Just things like having solid food and a warm bed.

Murtz Jaffer is the world's foremost reality television expert and was the host of Reality Obsessed which aired on the TVTropolis and Global Reality Channels in Canada. He has professional writing experience at the Toronto Sun, National Post, TV Guide Canada, TOROMagazine.com and was a former producer at Entertainment Tonight Canada. He was also the editor at Weekendtrips.com.