‘Big Brother’ Star Zae Frederich Reveals Strict Show Rules Imposed on Cast

Zae Frederich might have only lasted a week on Big Brother 27 after being the first houseguest evicted, but his journey with the show started weeks before setting foot in the house.

In a recent interview with The U.S. Sun, the salesperson from Paducah, Kentucky, revealed some interesting details of the show’s behind-the-scenes process, including how contestants are sequestered in a hotel room for two weeks before filming begins.

“The one thing that surprised me was the sequester was different from what I expected. It’s long,” Frederich told the outlet. “It’s almost two weeks… And you don’t have any contact with anybody. You’re just sitting in a hotel room.”

Frederich explained how he wasn’t allowed to leave the room, use a cellphone, or have contact with anyone. He couldn’t even use the hotel gym to work out. “You can work out inside the hotel room, but you’re just looking forward to the next time they bring you up food, basically,” he shared.

So what did he do for two weeks alone? Frederich explained that he spent the majority of his time watching movies. The production staff provided him with a “little DVD player” and he said he watched “like, 16 hours a day of movies. That’s all I did. It was just movie, movie, movie, movie. I would call in other movies, and then I would eat.”

The fitness fanatic did reveal he would work out “for 30 minutes a day” in the room, but most of the time he was just watching movies and waiting for his next meal. “You could request snacks or movies and stuff like that,” he added. “And then, yeah, it was just chilling, just sitting there doing nothing.”

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While he admitted it was “nice” to be “separated from the world” and all its worries, he said the alone time could become stressful. “It was like, ‘Man, I want to talk to people. I want to see people.'”

Then, there was the added stress of knowing he was about to take part in one of the most iconic reality shows ever, with a bunch of strangers who were also going through the same thing as him in that moment.

“At one point, you know that the cast list is released, but you haven’t even gone on the show. You don’t know the other cast members, but everyone else does,” Frederich said, referencing how CBS reveals the cast to the public while the houseguests are still sequestered.

Summing up his sequester experience, Frederich noted, “I would say that was something that was a little unexpected for me, a little behind-the-scenes thing that was cool.”