Big Brother Season 22 kicked off yesterday with all-star contestants, cast, and crew taking extra precautions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Host Julie Chen Moonves said the potential star castmates have been quarantined leading up to the premiere.
Chen Moonves told CBSN Los Angeles that production flew in “a bunch of people, more than 16.”
“Some people I thought were definitely going in the house, they tested positive for COVID-19 so they couldn’t go in,” she added.
In a separate interview with SiriusXM, the 50-year-old said the production staff who are essential to get the show on air wear masks and take weekly COVID-19 tests.
She said, “I’m the only person that’s not going to be wearing a mask for the limited time when I’m on television, but when we’re in commercial or what have you, that mask is going on.”
Crewmembers also wore color-coded lanyards. They can only be in the areas that are marked with their color.
Chen Moonves explained, “So let’s say you’re in the orange pod and your lanyard and ID has orange on it. You can only go into the spots where orange can go into.”
When any houseguest gets evicted, there will be no more handshakings and hugs with the host as part of social distancing.
Chen Moonves reflected on the 20 years since the inception of Big Brother in the US and said her hosting approach has evolved over time.
She said, “Season 1, I was terrible. Let’s just say what everyone knows: I was the Chenbot. I deserved that name because I was robotic. I came from a news background and I was asked to do this show and I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to be really straight, with no personality, because my original dream was one day to be a correspondent on ‘60 Minutes.’”
“And I was told if I do this reality show, I probably am shutting and sealing that door shut from ever going through it,” she added. “I’m going to prove them wrong.’ They were right, by the way. I was never asked to do 60 Minutes.”
Explaining how she has grown into the hosting role, Chen Moonves said, “I finally learned how to embrace the Chenbot. The stars of the show are the ones in the house. I’m just the conductor of this train. So sometimes letting my personality show.”
“I learned that also from I did eight years on ‘The Talk,’ where again, I had to learn how to not be so newsy and just not editorialize and kind of bring a little bit of my real personality to the table,” she added. “So it’s been a journey for me.” Globally, the virus has affected more than 18.9 million and killed over 711,000 people so far, with the United States reporting more than 4.9 million confirmed cases and over 161,000 deaths.
