‘Big Brother 21’s’ Sam explains why he finally exposed Christie’s game: ‘Why was I trying to tread lightly around her?’

Sam Smith’s last-ditch effort to blow up Christie Murphy’s game wasn’t enough to save him on Thursday’s “Big Brother 21,” but it wasn’t all for naught. His decision to reveal Christie’s lies Wednesday night has done the most — perhaps fatal — damage to the Six Shooters, as a dramatic vote-flip to evict Kathryn Dunn almost came to pass, literally down to the final minutes before the live show started.

How close was Sam to being saved? And why didn’t he blow up Christie’s game earlier? Read our exit interview below to find out.

Gold Derby: A lot of drama went down before the live show. How close was the vote to flipping?
Sam: I almost had it! I really did. I almost had it. I campaigned hardcore the night before. I started throwing Christie’s game out there because from what I saw was true. She was with me, Nick [Maccarone] and Bella [Wang]. She was in there saying Jack [Matthews] or [Jackson] Michie had to go. Why was I trying to tread lightly around her when I knew she didn’t care if I went? I see her campaigning for me to go, so when I planted those seeds of doubt and all of that transpired last night, I took a little bit of credit because, hey, my little seeds of doubt and seeds of deception that I planted — maybe they’re actually growing into a beautiful tree! I was standing back and letting everything go. Everything was blowing up.

If the show started about half an hour earlier, I don’t think you’d be talking to me right now. It was so close. Everyone was going to vote Kat out. People were yelling. [Analyse Talavera] came to me, Christie came to me, Tommy [Bracco] came to me — everyone, Cliff [Hogg III], Nicole [Anthony], Nick — saying I was staying. That was right around 5:30, 5:45. And then the last 15 minutes, all I heard was Kat crying in the other room. And then I heard Christie go, “I’m not going to vote Kat out. This isn’t her fault.” I was like, “Nooooo!” [Laughs]

SEE ‘Big Brother 21’ spoiler: Who won the Week 6 HOH?

Everything was almost there! Somehow, they all made amends. I still thought I might have the votes while we were sitting down about to start the live show. But when I looked over at Jack, he looked at me and said, “Sorry.”  I was like, “All right, well, that’s out.” I looked over at Tommy and he shook his head and I was like, “Jeez.” I looked at Cliff and Cliff’s like, “Sam, we tried.” So I was like, “Well, there goes that!” It was legit right when the show started. I was like, “OK, this is probably going to be 9-0.” And sure enough, everyone’s still going with the big majority. You got the big blowup, but it’s going to be fun to watch the show going forward because that six is not going to last. This is going to be awesome. I have no idea who won HOH. I’m so excited to watch back the season and watch last night. I’ve got a lotta questions!

Gold Derby: You can take credit for tearing apart the Six Shooters — that’s what they were called — even though none of them are out and you are. You had to be sacrificed.
Sam: Yeah, good! It’s funny because I talked to Sis two nights ago and that’s when Sis told me there’s an alliance of six, which we already knew. Is that what they were called? The Shooters?

Gold Derby: The Six Shooters.
Sam: The Six Shooters. Huh. OK, well, that’s lame.

Gold Derby: Is it really worse than Gr8ful or Unde9able?
Sam: [Laughs] Yeah, touché. And that alliance is probably more legit than the other ones.

Gold Derby: Yeah, they formed that a while ago, even though it wasn’t shown in the episodes until last week, because they wanted Nick and Bella out of Gr8ful early on.
Sam: Yeah, and I got caught in the Nick and Bella thing, so it makes complete sense.

Gold Derby: When they were all fighting before the show, did you notice anything where you were like, “Aha, Christie is the manipulator” or “This person is actually lying”?
Sam: I still think Christie may have been lying because I heard her at one point tell Jack, “Yeah, I was just going along with what Nick and Sam were saying before.” I was thinking, “You had a lot of conversations with us! You were name-dropping. You would go out of your way to talk to us about having Jack and Michie voted out, so you can’t be like, ‘I just went along with it.” Really?! You would start conversations on it too, you weren’t just going along with it. I still think Christie is a good manipulator and Christie would throw in tears here and there.

I noticed that because when I noticed her talking in the archery room with Cliff, she was campaigning for me to be evicted. About an hour after that, I was talking to her and I was playing dumb and was like, “Christie, you think my game’s over?” She was like, “Sam, I have no idea. I’m just gonna do what the HOH wants. I don’t want to see you go, Sam.” And she started crying. The left side of my mouth start smirking and I was like, “Give me a break!” [Laughs] You were just campaigning for me to go and now you’re standing in front of me crying like you don’t want me to go and will just do what the HOH wants. OK. Good one. I knew her tears could be fake at times. So when I heard her crying in the boat room last night, I was thinking she was trying to win them all back. So I think Christie is a good manipulator.

SEE ‘Big Brother 21’ spoilers: The Week 6 HOH has a brilliant game plan as the Six Shooters implode

I heard about an alliance called the Southerners that I guess Cliff was a part of. That didn’t really bother me because Cliff has never lied to me as far as I know. And I’ve never asked Cliff big questions like, “Are you in any alliances?” Looking back on it, I think you are right. Christie, I would pin as a manipulator trying to dig her way out of it because she knew she was cornered.

Gold Derby: She is really good at telling stories and embellishing them.
Sam: Definitely! She gets the A+ on that.

Gold Derby: Do you regret not blowing up her game earlier? You were debating calling her out in your eviction speech and you told Nicole the other night you didn’t want to blow up her game yet because she could spin it all around.
Sam: Looking back, I wish I had told Michie and Holly [Allen] … after Nick won the Veto because, according to Holly — maybe she was lying to me — if I had told her before she put up Kat, she would’ve put up Nicole because we would’ve had to figure that out. But I still had no intentions of blowing up Christie’s game because Christie was still nice to me the entire time and she had me fooled that she did not want me to go. It was only at the point when she was in the archery room with Cliff that I knew she was campaigning for me to be evicted, and also her fake crying. Then I was like, “Why am I campaigning nicely and not blowing up Christie’s game?” She obviously doesn’t care about blowing up mine. Why do I care about not blowing up hers? … Yeah, I wish I said it earlier, but when you’re in the house, you don’t know a lot. I can only use what I’ve got in front of me.

Gold Derby: You were out of the loop a lot. Bella told you about Gr8ful. Once you found out you were the ninth person in an eight-person alliance, did you try to come up with a backup plan? You were still unofficially working with them and then Unde9able happened.
Sam: My whole plan going in was that I was not going to create any alliances. That was not my thing. Usually people go down when they create alliances, but if an alliance were offered to me, I will take it. When Bella told me about Gr8ful, I was a little hurt Nick didn’t tell me, but in the long run, Nick didn’t need to tell me because it didn’t have anything to do with me. I did feel kind of close to that majority. I knew I was at the bottom, but I still felt safe and I was going to try to ride that out. But the floaters or bottom-feeders didn’t have the votes, so I wasn’t going to try to flip them because I didn’t know where they were at. I figured my best bet was to roll with Gr8ful.

After Jack dropped the bomb and told me about Gr8ful and tried to cover it up — it was hilarious — they came up with the nine-person alliance.  You can’t go from an eight-person alliance and go, “Sam, come join us. We’ll be called Unde9able, there’s nine of us.” Well, that still keeps me at the bottom! It’s not like I moved up three spots. That did me no good. I was trying to act like I was happy with it, but I’m sitting back like, “This is stupid. I’m at the bottom.” I wasn’t really part of any huge alliances. I always called myself part of the majority and that worked out so far until Week 5, and here we are.

Gold Derby: Did you try to change your game at all after the blindside or did Cliff winning HOH make you feel comfortable sticking with Nick and Bella? Clearly you were guilty by association because you were close to Nick and Bella.
Sam: Right. I didn’t think I was that guilty by association when Cliff won. I knew I was, but I didn’t think anyone took it to heart that hardcore. In my mind, I’m guilty by association, but I obviously didn’t do anything wrong, give them a couple of days, they’ll get over it. Unbeknownst to me, they were severely upset about it, I guess, and that’s how they perceived me. And I think Christie had a lot to do with that too. I think she was always saying, “Sam is with Nick and Bella” because she’s trying to cover her steps because she was also with me, Nick and Bella, so she was trying to place the blame on me. I think that led to my demise.

When Cliff won HOH, I was ecstatic because I knew Cliff wanted to make a big move, aka Jack and Michie. When I went up [to the HOH room], the first thing Cliff said to me was, “We’re doing Jack and Michie.” And what a huge fail that was! It didn’t work. His two nominees didn’t go home. Cool.

SEE ‘Big Brother 21’ twist: Here’s how to vote for America’s Field trip

Gold Derby: And he didn’t flush out Christie’s power. He just put up who she wanted.
Sam: Right! Who does that? Who does that in their right mind?! You always flush a power. You don’t say, “Oh, you can guarantee me two weeks? Cool. You can also keep your power. I’ll just do this for free.” No! … It was ridiculous! And maybe Christie wouldn’t have used her power — she probably still would’ve — but what if we were able to get to her and talk to her and whisper sweet nothings into her ear and maybe she wouldn’t have used it? Because she was still talking at that point about taking Jack and Michie out. That whole thing was just a mess of chaos and it was just a big fail. I still worked with Cliff because I trusted Cliff, but it didn’t work obviously.

Gold Derby: What do you hope happens this week after you started all this drama? Fans have been waiting for a power shakeup.
Sam: Oh, definitely. I had been waiting for a power shift too. We knew the six were working together; we just didn’t know what they were called. … When I talked to Michie and Cliff and Nick, I said, “Even if I still go home, this was all for you.” I’m rooting for the bottom-feeders anyway. I wanted to do enough damage to at least break up the six or just spread deception. That six has to be broken up. I’m so excited to watch back last night because I want to see if it got broken up. I have no idea, I hope it did. I know Michie was super mad right up to the point I was walking out the door. He wouldn’t even look at Jack. I loved it! They’re sitting there and they’re just super angry at each other. Ah, it was great!  I’m out, I’m not involved in that drama, but I hope it works to Nick’s, Cliff’s, Nicole’s and Jess [Milagros]’ favor. I hope they can use that and I hope different people start playing with different people.

PREDICT Who will win ‘Big Brother’?

Be sure to make your predictions to influence our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next live episode airs on CBS. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and a $100 Amazon gift card. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our reality TV forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.

SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s newsletter with experts’ latest predictions