Jagateshwar ‘Jag’ Bains Becomes First Sikh and Indian American to Win 25th Season of ‘Big Brother’
- The 25-year-old truck company owner from Omak, Washington, won over a jury of seven eliminated contestants, who voted 5-2 in his favor.
Jagateshwar “Jag” Bains has made history on CBS’ reality game show “Big Brother.” The 25-year-old truck company owner from Omak, Washington, became the first Sikh and Indian American winner in the show’s 25-season run. Bains won over a jury of seven eliminated contestants, who voted 5-2 in his favor. Matt Klotz, 27, “a Deaflympics swimmer and the first deaf contestant on the show,” and Bowie Jane Ball, “a 46-year-old Australian DJ and barrister,” according to the show website.
He gave “a fiery speech” to the jury, Entertainment Weekly reported, calling it a display of his confidence. “My hands are covered in your blood. I am the most dominant, masterful, and strategic player in this house,” he said. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly he said he didn’t think he was going to “make it this far in the game” and win. “But what I will say is everything I do is for my family,” he said to the digital-only entertainment magazine. “My parents immigrated to this country and they sacrificed everything to give me the life that I have. And so all of this is for them. All of this is for my family and that’s what I do know.”
Bains also works in real estate with his brother, Jasmair. They have their own Instagram for their joint real estate business. However, in the Big Brother house, he has “pretended to be a substitute teacher and a Special Olympics coach, both of which he’s done on the side,” according to Hollywood Life.
In an interview before the show aired, he told Parade that representing his Sikh community is important to him. “I wear a turban. This is how I represent myself every day. So to come to the show, be who I am, represent not only myself but my family, my people, my community, it means the world to me.” He further told the magazine that as a Big Brother fan, he “thought out his strategy to win the game” before entering the house. “I’m willing to do what it takes to go to the end,” he told Parade. “I want to do is as much as I can, keep myself safe, and have some close allies that I can take with me to the end so it’s not a lone wolf game that I’m going to play, I’m not going to make it to the end that way. So as much as I can be loyal to my closest allies, that’s how I build trust.”
LA Times notes that “with Bains’ victory, the CBS reality competition show has had three straight barrier-breaking victories.” In 2021, Xavier Prather, a Milwaukee-based attorney became the show’s first Black winner, and and last year, Taylor Hale, a former Miss Michigan USA, “became the first Black woman to win,” the publication said. Before this, the show, which debuted in 2000, has been plagued with “allegations of racism, homophobia and other forms of hostility among contestants on the show.”