“Big Brother” star Quinn Martin reacts to brutal eviction and Leah kiss denial

The ousted player also reveals what Rubina gave him on way out the door.

Quinn Martin’s dream ever since elementary school was to win his favorite TV show, Big Brother. But the dream was crushed on Thursday’s live eviction episode when the 25-year-old nurse recruiter from Omaha was voted out 4-2 by his housemates instead of Kimo Apaka.

Quinn was undone after house hurricane Angela Murray concocted a backyard alliance in her head, and told Head of Household Chelsie Baham that Quinn and Leah Peters were forming a new group with Kimo, T'Kor Clottey, and Rubina Bernabe. It wasn't true, but it didn't matter. Quinn had already been in pretty much everybody's sights all season long, so any excuse for them to take him out was a welcome one.

How difficult was it for Quinn to hear that he had been eliminated? How weird was it to hear that news not from regular host Julie Chen Moonves, but rather from substitute Jerry O'Connell? And what was going on with Rubina giving him an item on his way out the door that Quinn did not seem to want to accept? We asked the wannabe villain about all that… as well as being denied a house kiss by Leah.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Take us through your emotions as you were voted out. How hard was it to hear that you had been evicted?

QUINN MARTIN: Hearing that I got voted out was soul-crushing, to say the least. Just truly devastation to my core. It felt like the wind was taken from my chest. I've really loved and appreciated this experience, and so getting voted out just sucks. I hate losing more than anything. And so to hear "Quinn, you have been evicted," was just such a crushing blow to my ego. I wanted to do better.

I felt like I articulated my points so well before the vote, and so it was just super disappointing, and yeah, I'm just sad with the whole situation. It was extremely difficult hearing that I had been evicted because it was just such a concrete end to a journey that I wasn't ready for it to be over. I knew that my friends and family were probably watching this, and I can't help but feel like I disappointed them.

Every part of me wanted to be in that house. And so something like the vote being 4 to 2 was super hard to hear, and it's going to keep me up for years on end just because what could have been honestly is the core of it all.

What did Rubina give you as you were walking out the door, and why did you not want it?

Rubina tried to give me a friendship bracelet after I had just been evicted, and I was so annoyed, not with her, but just the audacity to be like, "Hey, I know you just got voted out. Here's a gift." And then it's like, I read it, and it says "Jury Duty" on it, and I was like: "Are you dunking on me right now? Get out of my face, dude!"

But when I saw her reaction of disappointment that I wasn't going to take it, I had to put my personal disappointment with the situation aside and accept this gift, whether it's her being malicious, iconic, or her just genuinely being kind — it's appreciated. Yeah, I was just so raw with emotions that when she's offering me something, I'm like, "Girl, get out of my face. I need to cry. This is a lot for me." Yeah, it's just a bracelet that said "Jury Duty" on it.

Leah refused to kiss you when the house was trying to get her to do so. What do you make of that?

Leah refusing to kiss me in front of the whole house is fully within her right. There is a little thing called consent that we need to respect, and I think that the expectations for her to kiss me just felt a little ludicrous in the moment. Unironically, I was so embarrassed in that moment, and was trying to keep it together, and it's like, I am someone who thinks that things like that — I'm not afraid of PDA or whatever — but it was just like, "Hey, maybe don't try to do that to people." There's a lot of expectations to deliver, especially in a house filled to the brim with people playing a social game, and so there's nothing to make of it other than she said no. And that's something that I wasn't super mad or disappointed. It is just like, "Okay, yeah, I understand."

And I think that that should be anyone's reaction to them not wanting to be kissed. I don't think that there's any other opinion to have outside of, she mapped out what she was comfortable with, and I respected it, and I would never try to push back and be like, "Please, just kiss me, please!" Oh my gosh, that just feels a little silly to me.

Yeah, I really respect her choice to do so. We are on such a large platform, and it's not like I had taken her out to dinner. It's not like we were exclusive. It's not even at that point there was a concrete interest expressed. There were so many reasons to not kiss me. It just felt like that made sense to me.

How shocking was it to see Jerry O'Connell there instead of Julie Chen Moonves, and were you really named after his character on Sliders?

Seeing Jerry on that stage instead of Julie was so confusing. I could not articulate enough just how crazy of an experience it is to have your dreams and aspirations stripped from your body. And then you go through the door and it's Jerry and it's like, "Oh my God. Huge fan of your work." Really way more handsome in person than you could ever expect. And then just this idea that… where's Julie, first of all, and what does this even mean? I'm so confused, and obsessed with him. He's so cool. And I'm pretty sure my mom told me that when I was maybe 14 or so that she always liked the name Quinn from Sliders, and so I'm pretty sure that's true. My mom might say otherwise, but I'm pretty sure I remember that correctly.

If you could go back and change one thing about your game, what would it be?

I think that if I could go back and change one thing about my game, other than not putting Joseph up on the block, I think that I would not have maybe told Angela about my upgrade. I felt so insecure in the first week — or insecure throughout the whole process, but week one specifically, I was willing to just provide everything that I had. If I had the ability to see into the future and sense that Angela's going to be this wild card instead of the fun, cool lady to hang out with, I would not have told her about my upgrade.

And I probably wouldn't have told Kimo about my upgrade either. He told Tucker too, let's not forget about that. Oh my gosh, we got rats. Honestly, it's so devastating that you share a secret and it's used against you in the game. How terrible. But yeah, I probably wouldn't have attached my wagon to Angela so quickly and enthusiastically with the foresight of "Hey, tomorrow she's going to call out this guy who seems nice enough." Yeah, I just would probably have kept that information to myself, but the Joseph vote I think was the devastating blow that cost me my life in this game.

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