Phoenix MMA fighter Kamu Kirk on what it was like to be on — and evicted from — 'Big Brother'

MARK BRODIE: Our next guest this morning might be familiar to any reality TV fans out there. Kamu Kirk is a professional MMA fighter and coach from here in Phoenix, and he was the sixth houseguest evicted from the “Big Brother” house on this year's competition.

[CLIP FROM “BIG BROTHER” PLAYS}

JULIE CHEN MOONVES: Houseguests, the votes are in. When I reveal the vote, the evicted houseguest will have just a few moments to say goodbye, gather his or her belongings and walk out the front door. By a vote of 8-1, Kamu, you are evicted from the "Big Brother" house.

[END OF CLIP]

MARK BRODIE: Kirk was actually one of two Phoenicians on the show this season, so we took the chance to chat with him about what it's like to compete on the Orwellian reality show where contestants compete to stay in the "Big Brother" house where they're constantly on camera and cut off from the outside world. Kirk told my co-host, Lauren Gilger, he was primed to compete on a show like this. He said he grew up watching "Survivor" and watched his first season of "Big Brother" when he was 18 and fell in love with it.

KAMU KIRK: You have to be physical, you also have to be strategic and you have to be social. But if you're too extreme in any of those areas, then you become a big threat. But if you're not good enough in any of those areas, then people also want to take you out. So you have to find that middle ground, that balance, and it was always something that I was fascinated with from the time I was I was a little kid. And so these types of of shows, "Big Brother," "Survivor," they just seem like the ultimate competitions.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. OK, I can see the the draw there. Talk a little bit about the process of getting onto the show, right? Like when did this go from "I'm a fan" to "I want to be in that house"?

KAMU KIRK: Yeah, you know what, so I have to — I always wanted to play, but I have to give my my brother props for actually really encouraging me to apply. Because for many years I was like, "Oh, I'd love to go on 'Survivor,'" or "I'd love to go on 'Big Brother,'" but I didn't apply. And then this particular — well, this past application season, my brother was like, "Hey dude, this is the year, we got to do it, we have to do it." And I kept kind of being like, "Oh yeah, yeah, you know, we'll do it, we'll do it." And he's like, "No, no, let's pick a weekend, let's lock in a date and let's actually do it." And so that's what we did, and long story short, you know, I'll be forever grateful to my brother because I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for him. And, you know, then I ended up making it on the show.

LAUREN GILGER: Were you surprised you did make it on the show? I mean ... how many applicants do they probably get, right?

KAMU KIRK: Well, you know what, they get on average roughly 30,000 applicants every single season.

LAUREN GILGER: My goodness.

KAMU KIRK: Yeah, so it was a, I mean, what a what a blessing it was to actually make it on the show and be one of those, you know, 30,000 — and really even less than that, because they always have half the cast men, half the cast women. So really, there were 17 people on the show, nine of them were women, eight of them were men. So out of the 30,000 people, only eight men were selected. So to be one of them is, you know, it was a huge blessing for sure.

LAUREN GILGER: Why do you think they chose you? What what do you think about you or your application stood out?

KAMU KIRK: I think probably the fact that I fought in the UFC, I think was a was a big selling point, and because I grew up competing. You know, I've always been a pretty social guy as well, so I always enjoyed the interviews, I enjoyed every person that I met with ... along the way throughout the process, and kind of became friends with each person that I would talk to and we would always have good rapport. So I think between my competitive background and then, you know, my ability to get along with people and to socialize with people, I think was was probably — I think those were probably the selling points for me that helped me out.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and and I'm guessing it is a long and kind of drawn-out process to get onto the show, right?

KAMU KIRK: Yeah ... I applied in like December or or January, and then I didn't hear back until February. I actually kind of forgot about it and just assumed, "Ah, I'm not getting a call back," because about a month went by before I heard anything. And then I heard something, and then it was about a four-month process before I got selected to be on the show. So, yeah, it was it was pretty strenuous, pretty thorough process that I went through. But honestly, it was it was a joy to go through.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so months-long process to get in, you make it to the house. Tell us about entering into this house the first day you get there. You're isolated from the world. You kind of know that you're not going to have any contact with anybody on the outside for a long time. What did it feel like?

KAMU KIRK: Yeah, that's such a good question. So, like I said, I started watching "Big Brother" probably around the time I was 18 or so. I'm 32 now. And being in the house and walking through the door for the first time was just the most surreal feeling in the world, because I'm like, "Dude, I've I've seen this on TV for so long, for so many years, and now I'm here." And I'm like, "This is the room where this happened," or, "This is the room where that conversation went down," and it was just it was so much fun. But if there was one word to summarize it all, that word would be surreal.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow, I bet. I bet. So let's talk about being in the house. You spent 45 days there, got through many rounds, won some of these competitions along the way before you were kind of voted out. What was the gamesmanship like, the maneuvering? How did you approach the sort of social game part of this, the Orwellian part of this, right?

KAMU KIRK: Yeah. Yeah. So basically I found out night one that there was a good chance I was a consideration for being nominated to go home. And for for those who understand the "Big Brother" lingo, I was basically told night one there's a good chance I was going to be going up on the block.

LAUREN GILGER: Man.

KAMU KIRK: Yeah .. on night one, and it was because I was seen as a physical threat. So I knew right off the bat, I really had to focus on my my social game. And so, literally from night one, I started to form as many connections with people as I possibly could, because when you have meaningful relationships with people in the house, those those meaningful relationships could potentially turn into meaningful alliances.

LAUREN GILGER: When you talk about sort of trying to form connections with people in the house, I mean, it's TV, right? Like there's got to be a level of like, "We know that this is all part of a game, there are cameras here, we know everyone's watching." How much does that matter in that process? Does it really feel genuine in in the moment?

KAMU KIRK: You know what, you'd be surprised how quickly you forget that you are on camera 24/7 and you're mic'd up and everybody can see and hear you all the time. I remember before going in the show, somebody had said, "Oh yeah, you know, you're going to forget that the cameras are on." And I just thought like, "How could you forget? They're everywhere. They're in every corner, in every room, you're always wearing a mic. How do you forget?" You forget so fast. But, so, but you can tell when you're having genuine conversations with people, you can tell when somebody's being a little bit shifty, a little bit shady, when somebody's being a lot more genuine.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so you are there for 45 days, you do end up being eliminated, sent home, evicted I think is the phrase on on "Big Brother," right?

KAMU KIRK: Yep, correct. Evicted from the house.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, so talk about the moment you walked out, right? Like 45 days is a long time. Did you get your phone back? Like did you call your family?

KAMU KIRK: Yeah, so you know what I got my phone back the next day. So I did a bunch of interviews first. So you get evicted and then the next day I did a bunch of interviews, and then I got my phone afterwards. And yeah, it is crazy when you're gone for, you know, a month and a half, two months, and then you get your phone back, there's so much to catch up on.

But it was really nice talking to my family, you know, catching up with my friends, seeing everybody at the gym again. But I will say, to this day, even now, it still bothers me that I was evicted when I was. I really wanted to stay in the house. I had I had so many dreams about it, like several dreams for weeks after getting evicted, because I would just think about everything going on in the house and how badly I still wished I was there competing.

LAUREN GILGER: I mean, so you come back, right? You do a lot of interviews, you go back to your regular life, but you also kind of are met with like the reality as the show airs of of what folks have been seeing, right? Like the the sort of ethos of the fans on "Big Brother," right? Like people will dig into every little bit of your background, lots of, you know, backlash about your beliefs, your politics, comments you make — like everything is up for grabs. What's this been like coming out of it?

KAMU KIRK: Yeah, you know, so that was surprising to me, but it was surprising, at the same time, I also kind of dealt with it in MMA a little bit as well. You can never please everybody. I think what was the most surprising was what people were saying and how they would take things and they would twist things and they would take things out of context. And then they would say things that just straight up were not true whatsoever. But, you know what, it's one of those things where it's like I know who I am and what I'm about, the people that I love and care about who love and care about me, they know who I am, they know what I'm about. And it gets to a point where it's like, you know what, people are going to they're going to label you and they're going to judge you and and they're going to say whatever they want. You can't let it get under your skin. Besides the criticism, too, there's been an overwhelming amount of support.

LAUREN GILGER: Do you have a pick for the winner?

KAMU KIRK: I'm rooting for my girl Taylor. Taylor, she fought really hard for me when I was still in the house. She fought really hard to keep me. My boy Yash also fought very hard to keep me. Yash, unfortunately, got evicted last week. Taylor is still in the house going strong, so I'm rooting for her. If not Taylor, then I'm going for Devens, my boy Devens.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. All right, we'll see what happens. The season finale is on Oct. 2. That is Kamu Kirk joining us. Kamu, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you giving us an inside look here.

KAMU KIRK: Hey, thank you so much for having me on the show, Lauren. I really appreciate it.