AG addresses Jessie's roughhousing with filthy and psycho

'Big Brother' executive producer address Jessie's roughhousing with Lydia, Natalie
by Lynette Rice

Has Jessie’s roughhousing with Lydia and Natalie gone too far on Big Brother 11? That’s what some fans think after watching the late-night feeds. Viewers have peppered BB message boards (including those on EW.com) with complaints that Jessie crossed a line during recent wrestling matches with the two young women, especially since a medic was called to check up on the diminutive Natalie. Executive Producer Allison Grodner told EW exclusively that while she takes the safety of the houseguests seriously, Jessie and the women “engage in (the roughhousing) consensually” and any action he made toward the woman “was not intentionally malicious or abusive.”

“We’re monitoring it,” said Grodner. “We’ve talked to Natalie and Lydia and Jessie about it in the diary room. We’re not looking to hide anything. Everyone who needed to be warned has been warned.”

Grodner confirmed that a medic looked at Natalie after Jessie pushed her in the leg. He did so, Grodner explained, after Natalie kicked him in the groin. “He’s a bigger guy,” says Grodner. “She was like, ‘ow!’ But she never came into the diary room asking for help. Safety is our utmost concern, so we wanted to make sure nothing was wrong so we called her into the diary room. She said it was nothing but we let the medic look at it. We have a medic here 24/7.”

Though Natalie is constantly by Jessie’s side – Grodner calls them Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo – the strangest dynamic occurs between him and Lydia. “It’s this emotional push me, pull you,” concedes Grodner. “It’s wrestling with sexual overtones. People who subscribe to the video streams know they’ve covered many bases with each other. She’s drawn to him yet she pushes him away so he pushes her away. It’s this odd kind of high school relationship. No one is really saying what they are feeling.”

This is bizarre because usually when reading Grodner's thoughts on what's going on I think she's living in a parallel universe and watching a different show, but she sounds perfectly reasonable here. I'm no Jessie fan at all, but I think people were just blowing this out of proportion due to their own Jessie hatred. It was essentially harmless--like AG said, there was no breach in any HG's safety--and he had no malicious intent. People were just still upset he got back on the show (me too) and were looking for any way to get him off of it.

What was disgusting, though, was Jessie's total lack of apology or remorse once he realized that Natalie was actually hurt. He just put on his typical tough-guy attitude and basically ignored her. NOT that he should be feeding her neediness....

Mechanical Bliss wrote:

This is bizarre because usually when reading Grodner's thoughts on what's going on I think she's living in a parallel universe and watching a different show, but she sounds perfectly reasonable here. I'm no Jessie fan at all, but I think people were just blowing this out of proportion due to their own Jessie hatred. It was essentially harmless--like AG said, there was no breach in any HG's safety--and he had no malicious intent. People were just still upset he got back on the show (me too) and were looking for any way to get him off of it.

What was disgusting, though, was Jessie's total lack of apology or remorse once he realized that Natalie was actually hurt. He just put on his typical tough-guy attitude and basically ignored her. NOT that he should be feeding her neediness....

Jessie's biggest downfall this season will be the relationships that he has with these two psycho women. Both of them are jealous, possessive and while one is an emotional disaster, the other is a controlling bitch. They want to wrestle and rough house with Jessie and then cry when they get hurt. While Jessie is no charmer and has got alot to learn about women, I dont feel he deserves any backlash over the "roughhousing".