Big Brother winner Jackson Michie reveals he has ‘blown through’ the $500,000 prize money he earned on the reality series.
Jackson was 24 when he competed on the US version of the show in 2019, fighting his way to a victory that was controversial because of his abrasive manner.
His biting remarks about a black fellow contestant even got him accused of racism, which he strenuously denied later that year.
After the show, he made a string of ‘poor financial decisions’ and frittered away his winnings, he told Julie Chen Moonves on her God 101 podcast.
Speaking with Julie, who has been the hostess of the US version of Big Brother throughout its 25-year run, Jackson shed some light on his personal trials.
He shared that after spending the half a million dollars he had earned on the show, he was so broke that he had to move back in with his parents in Nashville.
Big Brother winner Jackson Michie reveals he has ‘blown through’ the $500,000 prize money he earned on the reality series; pictured on the show
Jackson explained that when he moved to Los Angeles in February 2019 – months before he became a star on Big Brother – he had been ‘more or less running from problems here in Nashville.’
He was addicted to drugs for the five years leading up to his reality stardom, specifically abusing Xanax, Adderall and cocaine.
Jackson was able to quit while preparing to film Big Brother, wrenching himself away from the substances ‘cold turkey.’
He noted that ‘when I ended up winning the show, I didn’t have mentorship or guidance or financial counsel. And now I’m in Los Angeles, catapult into the world, with the same problems that I had not ever healed from.’
Having ‘just turned 24,’ he was in the ‘dangerous’ position ‘as a man’ of ‘not knowing not only how to feel pain but how to heal through pain.’
As a result, he began to throw himself into such diversions as ‘substances’ and ‘women’ until he eventually ‘started to rapidly spiral downhill.’
Jackson said: ‘And at 24, having just won $510,000, and having a little bit of popularity in Los Angeles, it was a dangerous combination for me.’
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he moved to Las Vegas, only to realize he would continue hitting the ‘rock bottoms’ there that he had experienced in Los Angeles.
After the show, he made a string of ‘poor financial decisions’ and frittered away his winnings, he shared with Julie Chen Moonves on her God 101 podcast
Jackson was 24 when he competed on the US version of the show in 2019, fighting his way to a victory that was controversial because of his abrasive manner
He changed his behavior by finding religion, but as he cultivated his Christian faith, he was still facing the consequences of his ‘poor financial decisions,’ so he caught a one-way flight to Nashville and moved back in with his family.
‘I have at this point blown through all of my money, net negative checking account, no car, no job, no plan, going back to the city and the place that I ran from, with no idea of what lied ahead,’ Jackson remembered on the podcast.
‘Disappointed and discouraged in myself doesn’t even put words to how I felt, because I realized I did everything that the people who didn’t like me on the show told me I was gonna do: “You’re young. You’re dumb. You’re gonna blow through it. You’re this and that. You’re gonna crash and burn.” And I did,’ he said.
‘I crashed and burned and I hit rock bottom more times than I can count,’ he admitted, recalling that once back in Nashville, he devoted himself to reading the Bible.
Thanks to his Christianity, he has turned his life around and become a happily married father – he tied the knot with one Caitlin Goodrich in 2023, and they are now the proud parents of a 10-month-old daughter called Sophia.
While he was on Big Brother, Jackson was accused of being racist because of scathing comments he made about black competitor David Alexander.
After the season was over, Jackson explained a couple of his comments, arguing they were based on David’s behavior as an individual rather than his skin color, on the podcast Now What?! With Jessica Graf.
On reality TV cameras, Jackson had accused David of having ‘shifty eyes,’ a remark that some social media commentators attributed to racial prejudice.
Jackson is now a happily married father – tied the knot with one Caitlin Goodrich in 2023, and they are now the proud parents of a 10-month-old daughter called Sophia
However Jackson insisted later that he used the descriptor because when David arrived in the house, he acted ‘sketchy’ and was ‘analyzing everything everyone said and did,’ to the point he ‘looked like he was just coming in to stir s*** up.’
One of Jackson’s other digs at David while on Big Brother had been: ‘David is going to come in and run a train on all these girls, right?’
After the show was over, Jackson said that the joke was based on comments David had made during his first week at the Big Brother house, which was not on film.
Jackson shared that David was ‘good-looking,’ ‘charming,’ and ‘very good with his words,’ and claimed that when the houseguests had ‘just met each other,’ David would ask ‘on multiple occasions’ who was single and who had ‘boyfriends.’
He went on: ‘So, there’s a clip of me saying: “David might come in and run a train on all these girls.” And they’re like: “Oh, why? Because he’s an African American?” I was like: “No, because when he came in, he was asking about who was all single.”‘
Julie’s own words on Big Brother had become a flashpoint for controversy in 2018, when her longtime husband Les Moonves lost his position as head of CBS because of a string of Me Too allegations.
Before that point, she had signed off on Big Brother as ‘Julie Chen’ – but after her husband’s defenestration, she began calling herself ‘Julie Chen Moonves’ on the program, which is carried by CBS.
