‘Big Brother’ Star Jackson Michie Blew $500,000′ in 2 Years After Winning Reality Show

Brittany Sims March 4, 2025, 5:06 pm

Expect the unexpected! Big Brother Season 21 winner Jackson Michie has revealed that he is broke. The reality TV contestant sat down with the show’s host, Julie Chen Moonves, to discuss how he “hit rock bottom” on her podcast, But First, God.

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Michie shared that he moved from Nashville, Tennessee, to Los Angeles, California, at the beginning of 2019, just months before he was cast on Big Brother. He didn’t have a plan of what he wanted to do or where he was going to go.

“I was at the lowest point in my life. I had a rough few months in Los Angeles. I had a stress-induced blood clot that I had removed in May 2019. I was essentially hiding all of these things going into the show,” he said.

He shared that he had had a drug addiction for five years at that point and went cold turkey when he went on Big Brother. “When I ended up winning the show, I didn’t have a mentor, guidance, or financial counsel, and now I’m in Los Angeles, catapulted into the world with the same problem I have never healed from,” Michie said.

The Big Brother player said that he coped with his scars with “substances, women, and secular activities.”

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“As those months after the show progressed, I started to spiral rapidly downhill,” he shared.

After moving multiple times and detoxing from substances, Michie got rid of everything. He moved out of his house, got rid of his car, and put his possessions into a storage unit to move back home with his parents in Nashville.

“I had, at this point, blown through all of my money, negative checking account. No car. No job. No plan. Going back to the city and the place that I ran from with no idea what lied ahead,” he said, as Chen Moonves wore a shocked expression on her face.

“Disappointed and discouraged in myself doesn’t even begin to put words to how I felt because I did everything that the people who didn’t like me on the show told me I was going to do. ‘You’re young, you’re dumb. You’re going to blow through it. You’re going to crash and burn.’ And I did. I crashed. I burned. I’ve hit rock bottom more times than I can count,” Michie said.

He shared that he changed his phone number, deleted his social media, and just wanted to “hide in a cave.” He stayed in his house for six months straight. “I didn’t want anyone to know where I was or what I was doing to see that the mistakes that I made were actually real,” he admitted.

Now, Michie works as a salesman selling roofs. He is married with a one-year-old baby.

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Michie made it to the final two of Season 19 with his showmance, Holly Allen. He took home $500,000, plus $10,000 from a prior competition. Allen came in second with $50,000. Michie was a major competition threat and won multiple competitions after a huge blow-up in week five put a target on his back and caused some of his allies to turn on him.

If you or someone you know has addiction issues, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration‘s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.