Hayden Wins 'Big Brother 12' By A 4-3 Vote
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Hayden Moss, a 24-year-old Arizona State college baseball player, was selected Wednesday evening as the winner of "Big Brother 12."
He beat 24-year-old Lane Elenburg, an oil rig salesman from Decatur, Texas for the $500,000 top prize. Elenburg wins $50,000 as runner-up.
Meanwhile, America voted Britney Haynes' as their favorite player of the summer and she garners $25,000.
She will need the money, too. Perez Hilton reported Wednesday that Haynes' Arkansas home sustained about $50,000 in damages in a fire earlier in the day.
The vote to pick the ultimate winner couldn't have been closer. The 7-member jury voted 4-3 for Hayden with the deciding vote being cast by Enzo Palumbo, 32, an insurance adjuster from Bayonne, New Jersey.
The Jersey-licious Enzo was considered by most of his houseguests to be the most popular among them and it was no surprise -- except to him -- when Hayden evicted him live on Wednesday's show. Hayden called Enzo "a huge threat...and one of the best players ever."
Enzo was the original mastermind of the four-man alliance known as "the Brigade." The other three members, Matt Hoffman, Hayden and Lane, comprised one of the most succesful alliances in the show's history despite the fact that Lane confessed in the diary room, "I don't even know what a brigade is!" (They even gave themselves nicknames: Hayden was "The Animal", Matt was "The Brains", the hulking Lane was "The Beast" and Enzo went by "Meow Meow.") Why Meow Meow? You don't want to know.
During the 2-hour finale, many bombshells were dropped on the houseguests including official video proof that Hayden and Kristen Bitting were carrying on a secret "showmance", that Matt's wife was not actually battling a terminal illness and that Ragan Fox, of West Hollywood, was the season's second saboteur.
For his role as the second spoiler of the summer, Fox, a 34-year-old openly gay college professor, won $20,000.
Kristen, the 24-year-old botique manager and part-time model from Philly, entered the house having a boyfriend back home but the showmance with Hayden apparently killed that relationship as she revealed on the finale that she was now "single and doing my own thing."
Before the jury voted to crown the winner, Hayden -- who endured continual and humorous slams over the summer from his houseguests for always being shirtless, for preening and playing with or flipping his usually tossled, unkempt mane -- asked the jury to vote for the person who was most competitive.
Meanwhile, Lane asked the jury to vote for him because "it's not about who won the most competitions...but how I played the game."
For the record, Rachel Reilly, Britney and Brendon Villegas voted for Lane. Hayden got votes from Kathy Hillis, Matt, Ragan and Enzo.
The final two endured 75 days in the house without TV, phones, newspapers, the Internet or any contact with the outside world.
