‘Big Brother’ Shuts The Door On Returning Veterans Twist For Season 20

It’s official. Big Brother won’t be welcoming back Paul Abrahamian—or any veterans—for the show’s landmark 20th season. Big Brother executive producer Allison Grodner told Entertainment Weekly that there is no chance that any past players will return to the house to compete for the $500,000 grand prize this summer in a casting twist.

“No,” Grodner told EW. “I can confirm there will not be. It’s different. We always try to mix it up and keep it fresh and this year, as you’ve already seen, there are 16 brand new houseguests that will be playing this game.”

But the Big Brother producer did not rule out cameos from fan favorite players in honor of the show’s milestone season.

“Now it is the 20th season,” Grodner explained.

“It’s our 20th anniversary of Big Brother so there will be nods to our history and our past houseguests from the get-go. You will see that in the show and throughout the summer.”

Big Brother fans know that the past three non-celebrity editions of the show (Seasons 18, 19, and last fall’s Over the Top CBS digital edition) each featured returning players competing against newcomer houseguests. Most notably, Season 18’s Paul Abrahamian returned the following summer and was granted the power to play the game with guaranteed safety for the first few weeks.

While the lack of returning players is good news for the current Big Brother houseguests, as of now they are in the dark about it. The BB20 hamsters are probably even expecting to see a familiar face or two take over the house based on the events of the past three seasons.

In fact, the Big Brother 20 houseguests recently talked to TV Guide about who they’d like to see in the house. The most popular pick was Season 16 mastermind Derrick Levasseur, whose claim to fame is winning Big Brother without ever being put up on the block. Other popular choices included Dr. Will Kirby and Mike “Boogie” Malin, aka Chilltown, from Big Brother Season 2 and All-Stars, and Dan Gheesling, another Big Brother legend.

A couple of the Big Brother houseguests even said they’d like to see Evel Dick Donato back in the house. And one superfan went way back. Season 20’s Scottie Salton said it’s time for Season 1’s Chicken George to make a return to the Big Brother house 18 years after his debut on the show.

The general consensus, though, is that Paul Abrahamian had one too many chances in the Big Brother house.

“I feel like as long as they don’t bring back Paul, I’m super happy,” Big Brother 20 contestant JC Monduix said.”I think he’s an amazing player, I don’t think his social game was that on point because he would have won… But please, not a third time.”

Big Brother 20 premieres Wednesday, June 27 at 8/7c on CBS.