Who Died on ‘Big Brother’?
Who died on Big Brother? With 24 seasons of play and 363 houseguests, it’s surprising how few houseguests have passed away since the show began back on July 5, 2000.
The series changed a lot since then, particularly between seasons one and two. And the 350+ houseguests have shown an impressive streak of longevity. Even the older players in the BB game on CBS. Here’s a look at who died.
Who Died on Big Brother? Season 2 Houseguest Kent Blackwelder First to Pass
The first Big Brother houseguest to pass away was Season 2’s Kent Blackwelder. The Tennessee native lasted five weeks in the BB2 house and was known for making friends with openly gay houseguest Bunky Miller.
That was despite Kent’s uber-conservative upbringing and views. He was 46 when he played the game. Kent died at age 62 of a heart attack on Christmas Eve on December 14, 2017.
Prior to his reality show debut, Kent was a TV news journalist working in Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. Later, he ran a caregiving service. His daughter dared him to audition for Big Brother.
So, she’s how he wound up on TV meeting new people and lasting for many weeks before he was evicted on a unanimous vote. His obituary calls him “unforgettable” and “charming”.
BB1 Cassandra Waldon Died in 2019
Cassandra Waldon made history on July 5th of the year 2000. She was the first person to ever walk into the Big Brother house as a houseguest back on season 1. Then, 10 houseguests were crammed into just two bedrooms with only 28 cameras tracking them.
BB1 was not the game you’d recognize now. Then, it was modeled more on the Dutch version with less competition and the public voting out houseguests. They assembled a potato clock to tell time and had chickens and a garden to tend in the yard.
Big Brother Season 1 aired in the summer of 2000 when Walton was 37. And it was 19 years later when Cassandra died at age 56. She started the “first in the house” curse. And she was also the first evicted to return on a twist in BB.
Complications from a car crash took Cassandra Waldon’s life. She was in Rome working for UN fund for Agricultural Development when she passed. Julie Chen said of Waldon, “Thank you for bringing your intelligence, warmth, and wisdom” to Big Brother.
Two US Stars from Celebrity Big Brother UK Died Too
Two other Americans that played BB passed away as well. These are people that were houseguests on Celebrity BB in the UK. These were David Gest and Dustin Diamond.
David Gest
David Gest was a concert promoter briefly married to Liza Minnelli. He was a music producer who was influential behind the scenes. He reunited the Jackson 5 for an epic Michael Jackson concert in 2001 before the King of Pop died.
Image via Shutterstock
MJ was his best man when he married in 2002. They split, and 14 years later when he joined the cast of Celebrity Big Brother UK 17 in January of 2016. He left for medical reasons early in the game. David Gest died of a stroke in a London hotel on April 12, 2016.
Dustin Diamond
The other American from CBB to pass was former teen TV star Dustin Diamond. Most TV watchers know him as Screech from Saved by the Bell. He wrote a Tell-All book (with a ghost writer’s help) about the show, which annoyed several castmates.
He lasted 16 days in the Celebrity Big Brother house, ranking 10th in CBBUK Season 12 back in 2013. A year later, police arrested him on a weapons charge. And two years later, he was arrested again.
Then, on January 14, 2021, Dustin shared that he had a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. Within two weeks, he was dead. Dustin Diamond was born on January 7, 1977 and died at age 44 on February 1, 2021.
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