Big Brother 26’s Kenney Kelley Says He Has a ‘Second Chance With Raising Kids’

Big Brother 26 ’s Kenney Kelley struggled with missing his wife and children during his time in the house, and he’s shedding some light on why the experience was harder than he thought.

“I’m at a point in my life — I’m older — this is like a second chance with raising kids,” Kenney, 52, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, August 9, one day after he was evicted from the CBS reality series. “I have two older kids [that are] 37 and 30, and then I have the two little ones. There's things that I missed out on with my older kids being a young parent and working all the time that I told myself that I wasn’t gonna miss out [on] this go around.”

Kenney noted that he first started trying to get cast on Big Brother five years ago, and his family dynamic was different then.

“My daughter was just a baby, and it would’ve been a lot different then,” he said, adding that his two younger children are now 6 and 8. “[My daughter’s] old enough to know that I was going away for a long time, and she wasn't happy about it. So, that was kind of tough.”

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Kenney spoke about wanting to leave the Big Brother house during week 1 when he and his ally Matt Hardeman were on the block next to each other. He was nominated again the following week but won the power of veto, which reenergized him a bit. However, by week 3, Kenney told Head of Household Cedric Hodges to nominate him, even though the twosome had a good relationship. He lost the BB AI arena competition to Tucker Des Lauriers during the Thursday, August 8, episode and was voted out over Quinn Martin .

Kenney admitted to Us that he “really wasn’t giving it my all” during the AI arena competition on Thursday because his “head wasn’t completely in it.” However, he says he didn’t throw the competition either.

“Tucker is a beast, and I knew I didn’t have to throw it with him. He was locked in from the time we got up [that] morning,” Kenney said. “I knew I wasn’t gonna beat him.”

While some Big Brother fans have questioned why Kenney went on the show in the first place, he told Us that he “never anticipated missing my family the way that I did.” He said if he’d had “less downtime and more gameplay,” he might’ve been able to stay more focused.

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“I think that's where I went wrong. I didn't play the game as much as I probably should have. I took my head out of the game,” he said. “I think if I had gotten into an alliance where there was a little more scheming and maybe if there [were] less people in the house, I think I would've had a better time.”

Kenney noted that he’s been away from his family before, but nothing could’ve prepared him for the Big Brother house.

“I’ve deployed to Afghanistan for a long period of time, but you still have that connection, whether it's an email, whether it's a picture. I totally underestimated the isolation portion of it,” he said.

Kenney’s wife, whom he met when they were both working as undercover cops, is a big fan of the show, and he thinks it was likely “difficult” for her to watch him struggling in the house.

“We made an arrangement that I was gonna talk to her on the [live feed] cameras … every day at five o'clock. And that was the most difficult part of my day because I was never really sure what camera she was watching, so I would do it two or three times throughout the house,” he said. “Each time I did it, it was a little more emotional and I'm sure it was emotional for her too. … I can't wait to hold her. I can't wait to hold my kids.”

Big Brother airs Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.