Rachel Reilly has made a career out of winning reality competitions and being unmistakably herself while she does it. She won Big Brother, won Fear Factor, won Snake in the Grass, and married the man she met during her first stint in the Big Brother house. In 2025, at 41, she returned to the Big Brother house as a surprise mystery houseguest, 14 years after her original win. Her run on The Traitors Season 1, back in between those two Big Brother eras, added a new wrinkle: a game she didn’t win, playing alongside and against people with very different reputations than the Big Brother cast she came up with.
Reilly’s path to reality stardom started far from any studio lot, in a chemistry classroom in North Carolina.
From Chemistry Major to Reality TV Fixture
Reilly studied chemistry at Western Carolina University before pivoting toward entertainment. She worked as a cocktail waitress and model in Las Vegas and picked up a brief role on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful before landing her first reality gig.
Winning Big Brother and Meeting Brendon
Reilly first appeared on Big Brother 12 in 2010, where she formed a showmance with fellow houseguest Brendon Villegas. She returned the following year for Big Brother 13 in 2011, partnered with Villegas, by then her fiancé, under the season’s “dynamic duo” format, and won the season outright. Villegas proposed to her on Valentine’s Day in 2011, and the two married on September 8, 2012.
The pair went on to compete together twice more on The Amazing Race, finishing third both times, and Reilly ran the course a third time with her sister Elissa Slater, placing seventh. Along with her Big Brother win, she also took first place on Celebrity Fear Factor and USA’s Snake in the Grass, making her one of the few three-time reality competition winners on American television. Reilly and Villegas have two children together, daughter Adora, born in 2016, and son Adler, born in 2020.
| Year | Show | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Big Brother 12 | Showmance with Brendon Villegas; did not win |
| 2011 | Big Brother 13 | Winner, “dynamic duo” format with Villegas |
| 2011-2013 | The Amazing Race (x2) | Third place both runs with Villegas |
| 2012 | Celebrity Fear Factor | Winner |
| 2016 | Snake in the Grass | Winner |
| 2023 | The Traitors Season 1 | Banished Episode 8, finished 8th of 20 |
| 2025 | Big Brother 27 | Mystery houseguest; eliminated Week 9 via twist challenge |
Playing Detective on The Traitors
On The Traitors, Reilly allied early with fellow Survivor alum Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, a former rival from Snake in the Grass turned trusted partner in the new game. The two correctly identified Cody Calafiore as a Traitor early on, one of the season’s sharper reads. Reilly grew suspicious of eventual winner Cirie Fields late in the game, but the read came too late to act on. She was banished in Episode 8, finishing 8th of 20, after a season-long feud with Kate Chastain that became one of the show’s more talked-about personality clashes.
Back on Big Brother at 41
Big Brother 27 premiered on July 10, 2025, built around a “Summer of Mystery” theme, and Reilly entered partway through as the season’s mystery houseguest, walking in with her signature line, “Floaters, grab a life vest!” She told Gold Derby she came back because “$750,000 is on the line,” framing the run as building her own “dynasty” inside the house rather than a nostalgia lap. Her season ended in Week 9, when a puzzle-based elimination twist called the “Mastermind’s Maniacal Maze” removed her from the game without a traditional vote: houseguests raced against a shrinking time limit, and Reilly was the first to fail the maze after three others had already cleared it. The twist made her the season’s first jury member, giving her a vote in the eventual winner’s outcome even though her own game ended earlier than she or fans expected.
Life Now
Outside the game, Reilly and Villegas live in Birmingham, Alabama, where he works as an assistant professor at UAB Hospital while she juggles motherhood with a casting business and her own TV production work. She has produced and hosted several of her own shows, including Better with the Brenchels, Reality Relapse, and Adventures 4 Pets, keeping her in front of cameras on her own terms rather than waiting for another invite back to a house full of strangers. Her 2025 Big Brother return, more than a decade after her first, put her back in that conversation anyway, a reminder that her Traitors Season 1 run was just one stop in a reality-TV career that keeps finding new competitions to win, or in this case, new twists to get caught by.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many reality shows has Rachel Reilly won?
Three: Big Brother 13 (2011), Celebrity Fear Factor (2012), and Snake in the Grass (2016), making her one of the few three-time reality competition winners on American television.
Why was Rachel Reilly eliminated from Big Brother 27?
She was eliminated in Week 9, 2025, through a puzzle-based twist called the “Mastermind’s Maniacal Maze” that removed a houseguest without a traditional vote. She became the season’s first jury member.
Did Rachel Reilly win The Traitors?
No. She was banished in Episode 8 of Season 1, finishing 8th of 20, after correctly identifying Cody Calafiore as a Traitor but growing suspicious of eventual winner Cirie Fields too late in the game.
