Bree Amer describes what went on the night Big Brother evicted her by accident

IN 2004, jaws dropped as Gretel Killeen announced there’d been a huge mistake. Here’s what was going on behind the scenes.

IN 2004, jaws collectively dropped around the country and inside the Big Brother compound when host Gretel Killeen appeared via satellite to tell the contestants there’d been a huge mistake.

“Last night, there was an error with the voting calculations. This means that the wrong person was evicted,” she told the shocked housemates, as Bree Amer — head still spinning from her whirlwind eviction — was shunted back into the Dreamworld property.

Sure, Big Brother was rocked by plenty of scandals throughout its lengthy run (hard to forget the Turkey Slap), but Amer’s eviction stuff-up is one that has earned its place in the reality TV halls of infamy.

Fourteen years later, the mum-of-one, now 35, still can’t believe what happened that crazy night.

During a new interview with Tim Dormer for the Popcast podcast, Amer described her shock at being hauled back into lockdown after an “entire eviction show”.

“They gave me a car, some phones, Gretel did the interview, and I got to see all the fabulous and embarrassing things I’d done ... and, you know, they used to usher [evicted contestants] off and take you to an afterparty with all your friends and family ... so, you know, my mum was there, my best friends, my brother,” she told the 2013 Big Brother winner.

Fans greeted Bree as she was evicted from the house.

But, unlike the others, Amer’s eviction party was very short-lived.

“They took me off and I had a debrief with a psychologist, and he took me up to my hotel room and was like, ‘I’ve just brought someone here as a witness.’ I was like, ‘What? What’s going to happen here?’”

Amer explained that she wasn’t too fazed after then being told that Legion Interactive, the company in charge of tallying votes, had made a mistake, and that she wasn’t meant to be evicted.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s all right’ ... I’d been drinking cocktails with my friends for two hours, and was like, ‘Whatever! I’m having the best night ever!’”

But producers weren’t so keen to fob it off — they told Amer that if she didn’t re-enter the house, she could potentially sue them later because she “could have won the million dollars [prize money]”.

“I took a fair bit of convincing, and eventually they were like, ‘We want you to go back in tomorrow,’ so they immediately put me back into lockdown,” Amer told Dormer, adding that when she re-emerged in the competition the following day, the other contestants were “really suspicious”.

“There was just this weird kind of vibe, and I hadn’t slept because I’d been awake all night, processing what was going on ... So I went in and literally went bonkers the first night ... I think I cried half the night, because I didn’t know if I’d made the right decision, and I was tired and emotional.”

Despite that stressful chapter in the middle, Amer went on to become runner-up to winner Trevor Butler, and told Popcast she has no regrets about the experience.

“I did it at the perfect time in my life — I was 21, single, no kids, and had no huge career to worry about ... It was just a really fun holiday.”

Trevor and Bree celebrate as they leave the house — for good this time.

Originally published as Bree Amer describes what went on the night Big Brother evicted her by accident