Vanessa Rousso

Vanessa Rousso was a houseguest on Big Brother 17. Vanessa is known for being the founder of The Sixth Sense alliance, manipulating people to do her bidding within the game, and playing a strategic and aggressive game. For a majority of the season, she controlled the game, and was responsible for almost every eviction within the house. She made countless deals and won several competitions within the house to get her to finale night.

She finished in third place, being evicted by the sole vote of her ally, Steve Moses, who went on to win the game. According to most of the jurors, had Vanessa made it to the final 2, she would have had the votes to win over either Steve or Liz Nolan.

Due to her competition prowess, strategic maneuvering, and constant manipulation, she is considered one of the greatest female houseguests in Big Brother history.

Biography
Vanessa is the No. 4 female poker player in the world when it comes to online and live tournaments. She's been a pro for the past 10 years and has won $4.5 Million dollars since she began. She's a tomboy who has always been extremely competitive, whether it's playing lacrosse in high school or beating men and women all over the world at the poker table. Being in a male-dominated industry, Vanessa isn't easily intimidated and is used to keeping her emotions in check, which will help her keep her eye on the prize. She's perfected the art of bluffing and knows that she can manipulate her Houseguests however she sees fit while living in the Big Brother house.

Competition History
Note: 1 Vanessa volunteered to sit out of the first HOH competition as only seven spots were available.

Trivia

 * Vanessa's HOH reign in Week 3 is the first time a female HOH evicted a male houseguest since Aaryn Gries evicted Judd Daugherty in Big Brother 15, over 25 evictions ago.
 * Vanessa is the first female in Big Brother 17 to win the Power of Veto.
 * Vanessa is also the first HouseGuest in Big Brother 17 to win PoV and not be a nominee
 * Vanessa is the first HouseGuest in Big Brother 17 to win a HoH and a PoV.
 * Vanessa is the only HouseGuest in Big Brother 17 to have used the Veto on someone else.
 * Derrick Levasseur, Big Brother 16's winner, rated Vanessa as the most dangerous type of player.
 * When Steve noticed similarities between her and Derrick he made it his strategy to evict her and did so on finale night.
 * Vanessa is the second Big Brother contestant to be a judge on a TV show, Bank of Hollywood, the first being Frankie Grande who is currently judging America's Best Dance Crew.
 * Unlike Frankie, Vanessa became a TV judge before appearing on Big Brother.
 * She is third houseguest to win the POV twice in Big Brother 17 following John McGuire and Steve Moses.
 * She is also the first female to win POV twice.
 * Vanessa is currently tied with Drew Daniel, Janelle Pierzina, Hayden Moss, Rachel Reilly, Ian Terry, Aaryn Gries, Jillian MacLaughlin, Caleb Reynolds and Steve Moses for the most official HOH wins in a season with four (4).
 * Her and Steve are the only houseguests to accomplish this that competed in the same season when they did.
 * Although Hayden and Rachel competed in Big Brother 12 together, Rachel accomplished this in Big Brother 13.
 * Vanessa is tied with Daniele Donato for the second most competitions won in a season in Big Brother history with 7 (4 HOHS, 3 POVS), behind Janelle Pierzina who has 9.
 * She is second woman in the history of Big Brother to win at least 3 HOHs and 3 POVs in one season following Janelle Pierzina.
 * She is the second person to be in 3rd place and have her name start with a V preceded by Victoria Rafaeli, along with having the initials VR.
 * She is responsible for every eviction except for Jace's and Clay's who were both put up by James Huling, and Jackie Ibarra.
 * In the live finale, Steve confirmed that it was his idea to evict Jackie and Vanessa stated in an interview she had with Jackie that she was not responsible for Jackie's eviction. Jackie did joke with Vanessa about being responsible for her eviction.
 * The only part Vanessa had in Clay's eviction was telling the Austwins to keep Shelli but Clay had a much larger part by telling everyone to vote him out similar to Lawon Exum telling everyone to vote him out.
 * Vanessa has been compared to Big Brother 10 winner Dan Gheesling and Big Brother 16 winner Derrick Levasseur.
 * When Derrick was asked about the comparisons he said the obvious difference between his gameplay and Vanessa's was that he let other people do his bidding for him and blow up their own game while Vanessa was a more emotional player and said she could have been a target for her outbursts.


 * In all of her HOH reigns all of her original targets were not evicted.
 * Her original targets were always James, Austin or John.
 * Her new targets Jeff, Jason and Austin respectively were evicted though.
 * If Vanessa made it to the F2 she would have not received votes from Jackie, Meg and Austin.
 * She would only not receive a vote from Julia if her sister was in the F2.
 * Vanessa has broken the prize sharing rule multiple times including offering Julia Nolan $10,000 if she went home instead of Meg Maley.
 * Vanessa has defended her controversial vote for Liz Nolan to win several times and called Liz an underrated player.
 * She is the only female in Big Brother 17 to win the POV multiple times.