Wildcard Contestants is a twist from various seasons of Big Brother, where the public votes for an additional contestant that they want to compete in the house with the other contestants. The winner gets a spot in the game and become an official houseguest, while the losers get nothing and are sent home.
The Wildcard Contestants usually enter the game after the game has already started. This leaves them out of the loop with some things, thus they must catch on to survive evictions.
Overall, Wildcard Contestants have done really well in their seasons. Becky Hannon from Big Brother UK 13 placed in the top nine, Allison White from Big Brother Canada 2 placed in the top seven, and Nikki Grahame and Tim Dormer from Big Brother Canada 4 placed in the top six and top three respectively.
List of Wildcard Contestants
Trivia
- Big Brother Canada 4 is the first season to feature two wildcard contestants entering the game, along with the first male wildcard to enter the game.
- It is also the first season to feature returning players from other seasons as wildcard contestants.
- Every season thus far has had a female enter as a wildcard contestant.
- Pinoy Big Brother 2 is the first season to feature this twist as Secret Housemates.
- Pinoy Big Brother: Unlimited used a lottery machine for choosing the Wildcard contestant among the Top 30 Potential Housemates instead of public voting.
- Big Brother All-Stars and Big Brother: Over The Top also had twists involving voting houseguests into the game that were very similar to the Wildcard twist.
- BBAS/BB7 had half of their All-Star houseguests voted in by the fans, with the other half being chosen by producers.
- BBOTT had two Returning Players (Jason Roy and Jozea Flores) who were eligible to be voted in as the final houseguest, similar to the Canadian Wildcard twist. The only difference is, the joined the game on the first night along with the other houseguests, rather than joining in at a later point in the game. Jason ended up winning the vote and was sent into the game as the final houseguest.
- Pinoy Big Brother 7 also had a Wildcard twist during the Dream Team chapter of the season.
- Two of the Lucky 7 Housemates from the previous three batches of the season competed in a series of challenges to be able to join the 4th Slot of their respective teams for the Dream Team.
- In Pinoy Big Brother: Otso, the twist became part of the season's main theme where a set of wildcard contestants called as "Star Dreamers" were sent to Camp Star Hunt where they would compete in a Housemate Selection process every week to move into the Big Brother House, replacing the evicted housemate of the week.