'Big Brother' Season 23: Fourth Houseguest Gets the Axe After Tense Week

*Caution: Spoilers ahead!*

This season of Big Brother is really starting to heat up. After three weeks of somewhat predictable evictions, the house's many overlapping alliances are beginning to pull apart in different directions.

If you're anxious to only find out who got kicked out, scroll down below. But first, it's important to see just how this eviction played out over the last week.

After the house sent Brent Champagne home last week in an unanimous 11-0 vote, Christian Birkenberger won the HOH competition, and the decision of who to nominate for eviction fell on his shoulders.

While there was a lot of back and forth between Christian's team (The Kings) and his alliances, he ultimately decided to nominate Whitney Williams and Hannah Chaddha, with Whitney as the primary target and Hannah being used as a pawn.

This nomination stirred a lot of drama because of the many different hidden interests and behind-the-scenes machinations that are playing out in the nooks, crannies and quiet side rooms of the Big Brother house.

Sarah Beth Steagall -- a member of The Kings -- tried to get her teammates to target Hannah instead of Whitney, but her efforts failed to sway anyone. That being said, Sarah Beth's efforts draw the mistrust and ire of Tiffany Mitchell -- one of the season's fan favorites who is considered to be one of the best players in recent memory (thus far).

Whitney soon came to realize she's the main target, and the Power of Veto competition was her only chance to save herself from the block. Unfortunately, it's a tough competition for everyone, and the two best athletes in the house -- Christian and Derek Xiao -- end up dominating with Christian ultimately winning.

While it was a long shot that he'd change his own nominations, there's one moment that nearly changes everything. Whitney, Derek X and Hannah are all part of the same team, The Aces. At one point -- seemingly without thinking -- Derek X makes an off-handed joke about how her and Hannah will be spending the next week, meaning he feels Whitney is going home for sure.

The only problem was Whitney heard him say it, and she goes nuclear. She starts playing hard and goes to Christian to try and convince him to use his Power of Veto to remove her and put up Derek X, who is clearly a bigger danger considering he's won more Veto comps than anyone else in the whole house.

It's a solid argument, but one that ultimately doesn't move Christian to change his mind, and he ends up not using his Power of Veto, locking Hannah and Whitney on the chopping block.

This brings us up to Thursday's big eviction night. The Cookout Alliance (made up of Azah Awasum, Derek Frazier, Kyland Young, Xavier Prather, Tiffany and Hannah) seems like the dominant force in the house -- especially under Tiffany's next-level planning.

However, cracks in the foundation begin to form in The Cookout over Hannah's inclusion, with a few members not feeling they can trust her. Hannah has been playing the details of her background and education close to the vest (she graduated from college at 19 and went on to pursue her Master's Degree). 

Meanwhile, while things seemed inevitable for Whitney, that didn't mean she was ready to quit fighting. She makes a last-ditch play by appealing to Alyssa Lopez -- who has quite a bit of sway with Christian. When Alyssa bites the bait, she convinces Christian that Hannah doesn't respect his game, and this ego blow seems to send him into a tailspin. 

By the time the eviction ceremony comes, Christian is already murmuring about changing his target from Whitney to Hannah.

After both Whitney and Hannah delivered surprisingly mundane appeal speeches (with both essentially just asking nicely to not be evicted), it was time for the eligible houseguests to vote.

Quickly, however, it turned out that all the pleading in the world didn't manage to do much. Houseguest after houseguest came into the booth and cast votes to evict Whitney, en masse. Even houseguests (like Sarah Beth) who spent the whole week trying to get Hannah evicted wound up voting for Whitney. By a unanimous 10-0 vote, Whitney got the boot.

After taking the eviction in stride and giving everyone a hug, Whitney walked out the front door and joined Julie Chen Moonves to reflect on getting kicked out and why she felt she was targeted.

"A big part of it is I am a huge advocate for female empowerment and I haven't really made it a secret in the house, I shout it out. I love women, I want women to become a better version of themselves, I'm very loud about it. I know the guys were scared of me in that way," Whitney shared. "And I also made it very apparent that I'm not afraid to make big moves. So if I needed to do something that has to be done, even if it might hurt other people, I'm not afraid to do that. Hannah is a little more quiet about her thoughts and actions."

When asked why she felt Christian didn't hear her out about nominating Derek X instead of her, Whitney said she felt it had to do with gender balance.

"There have been three men out in a row and I know the men are really scared of women having the control in the house. So he told me that one of the reasons he didn't want to put Derek up instead of me was that he was scared there would be too many girls," she shared.

Despite her eviction, Whitney said she holds no ill-will toward anyone in the house, explaining, "I'm not mad, it's Big Brother. It's all part of the game."

After Whitney's departure, the remaining houseguests were treated with a surprise twist -- the season's previous twist of dividing the players into teams is now over. There are no more teams, meaning when someone wins HOH, it doesn't guarantee safety for anyone other than themselves.

Then, it was time to kick off the next HOH comp! However, given the fact that it was an endurance challenge, no winner was declared during the episode, and fans will have to tune in to the next episode (or watch the livesteams on Paramount+) to find out who won.

Big Brother airs Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. For more, watch below.

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