The fans can now vote for America's Favorite Houseguest on Big Brother 22: All-Stars and give one player the $25,000 cash prize. Informally known as America's Favorite Player, this award was first introduced on Big Brother 7, which was the first All-Stars season of the series. That year, Janelle Pierzina won the popular vote and became the first AFH winner in history. Between BB7 and BB16, the show revealed the percentages of the public votes every year. The lowest percentage for an AFH winner was James Zinkand on BB9, who won the award with 20.5% of the votes. Alternatively, Donny Thompson on BB16 won the award with the highest percentage in history, with a total of 52.7% of the public vote.
Starting on Big Brother 17, the production team started to not disclose the voting percentages for America's Favorite Houseguest. However, the show does reveal certain noteworthy details on occasion. For instance, BB19 received the highest number of AFH votes in the history of the series, with over 15 million votes. Another noteworthy achievement took place on BB20, when Tyler Crispen became the first runner-up in history to win America's Favorite Houseguest. Interestingly, all three AFH winners between BB18 and BB20 were part of a showmance on their respective seasons.
Voting is now open for the Big Brother: All-Stars fans to choose their favorite player to win the America's Favorite Houseguest award and go home with the $25,000 cash prize. The fans can cast up to 10 votes per day on CBS.com. Voting opened this Thursday, October 22, and will be open until Tuesday, October 27 at 9 am PT. In order to vote, a fan must log onto CBS.com with a cable TV provider or a CBS All Access subscription. Viewers can choose to vote for any of the 16 contestants who were on the Big Brother 22 cast. That includes the Final 3 players of the season - Cody Calafiore, Enzo Palumbo, and Nicole Franzel -, who will be competing for the $500,000 grand prize during the BB22 finale on Wednesday, October 28.
The America's Favorite Houseguest award rewards a Big Brother player with a cash prize of $25,000, which is half of the amount given out to the runner-up of the season. Because the public gets a chance to vote for the winner of AFH, many consider this award an opportunity for the fans to reward the type of player that they want to see more of. With that said, this isn't always the case. There are many variables that play a role in the votes for AFH, such as the impression that a particular houseguest was "robbed" of a better placement on the season.
Given that this is an All-Stars season that was full of fan-favorites, the voting for America's Favorite Houseguest will likely be tighter than it's ever been. Nonetheless, the winner will be revealed during the BB22 finale on Wednesday night.
Big Brother 22: All-Stars airs Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8pm EST on CBS.
Sources: CBS.com