Big Brother: Kevin Disgusted By Julie Chen's Bible Gift After Church Kicked Him Out For Being Gay
Big Brother 22: All-Stars host Julie Chen gifted Kevin Campbell a Bible, despite the fact that he was excommunicated by his church at 21 years old for being gay. It's been a bit of a surprise for longtime Big Brother fans to hear Julie Chen talk so often about her faith. But on social media and on the show, Julie's message has been of love, unity, acceptance, and other universal themes that people of all religions (or no religion) probably agree on. All things considered, Julie is just showing more of her personality through conversations about faith.
It should also be noted that Julie Chen wasn't the only person on Big Brother 22 that brought up her faith. Contestants like Da'Vonne Rogers and Bayleigh Dayton often talked about their Christian beliefs. Nicole Franzel and Christmas Abbott were regularly seen in the BB22 live feeds reading the Bible. Kaysar Ridha asked production to install a bidet for religious purposes. Faith was everywhere in the season, just shown in different forms - but Kevin's life story with church and religion hasn't been entirely positive, something that he's always made clear on the show.
Kevin Campbell was the only gay houseguest featured on Big Brother: All-Stars. On his official interview with CBS prior to this season, Kevin shared the following fact about himself: "I grew up a Jehovah's Witness but was excommunicated at 21 years old." The excommunication process is defined by Christianity.com as "the most severe expression of formal spiritual pronouncement in the process of church discipline." For context, there are still friends and family members that do not keep in touch with Kevin due to the fact that he's gay. Nonetheless, Julie Chen recently sent all of the All-Stars houseguests a box of goodies, thanking them for being on this season and wishing them happy holidays. The thing is, the box included a Bible, which rubbed Kevin the wrong way. As seen in the clip below, Kevin called sending him a Bible "evil" and that he interpreted it as "Julie is saying that I need Jesus." Kevin then took a look at the other items that were in the box, and all of them seemed to have religious affiliations to them.
It should be noted that Julie Chen seems to have sent the exact same box of goodies to every single BB22 player, so she didn't just deliberately send Kevin Campbell a Bible as an insult or as a suggestion of any kind. She sent the same thing to all of them, so Kevin received one, too. With that said, one must wonder if Kaysar Ridha, who is a Muslim man, also received a Bible in the mail. If he did not, then Kevin should've probably also been sparred, given his complicated history with the church.
The Big Brother 22: All-Stars post-season is the era that keeps on giving. Expect the unexpected!
Sources: Kevin Campbell's Instagram, CBS, Christianity.com