Local "Big Brother" Winner Returns Home To Shaler
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The winner of the CBS hit reality show "Big Brother" is back home in Shaler Township.
He's also a half million dollars richer.
"My name is Ian. I'm 21-years-old. I'm an engineering student formerly from Pittsburgh, Pa., but currently living in New Orleans, La."
That's how Ian Terry introduced himself, on the "Big Brother."
The Tulane University student "engineered" the game so well that competitors voted him the winner of the $500,000 top prize. It was a payoff for living 75 days in a house in Los Angeles, where cameras never stopped.
"You really miss creature comforts when you're in the house," he says, back home in Shaler. "You don't get news, TV, computer, any contact with family or friends. It gets to be boring at times, and really uncomfortable."
In the home where he grew up, his parents and younger brother have no plans to vote him out of the house.
During the early weeks of the show, there was talk of a budding romance with former Pittsburgher Ashley Iocco. But Ian says it was just gamesmanship.
"You definitely have to make friends and get people to trust you in the house, so I mean, it's definitely part of the game," he said. "Everything we do in there is part of the game. It's the ultimate social game."
His strategy was to get other players to underestimate him.
"In the early stages of the game," he says, "throw all the competitions to look weak, so nobody would go after me. And then, toward the end, I would just ramp up my competition game and kind of just win a lot of challenges to get me to the end. Once they figured out I was pretty good in the competitions, it was a little bit too late."
He managed to win with a minimum of back stabbing.
"I got to the end, and I think the jury realized I played a much cleaner game than my opponent," he said. "So, they had to award me the cash."
The college senior says he'll use the money to pay off student loans.
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