The Zach Nichols Podcast - The Michaela Bradshaw Interview! | ZNP EP. 132

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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What's up, everybody? This is the Michaela B here on the Zach Nichols podcast, talking about everything and anything, including faces. Welcome back to the Zachicles podcast. Listen, you don't need an introduction. She doesn't. Because Michaela Bradshaw brings the smoke on the challenge. I was going to wear my Tony Montana shirt today because a lot of times I like to wear a shirt that I think represents our guest. but I have to go to rehearsal dinner after this

so I didn't want to do an outfit change, but you are on a absolute mission this season. Sorry for not introducing you. Everyone knows you anyways. No one cares about me. Another round of applause. The only person anyone ever cares about is Michaela, Bradshaw, here for the second time. Holy shit. Told

someone you're going to punch him in the face last night. Oops. I slipped out. Listen, I love that because I might have said that a few times myself. I'm at a 9.5. Awesome line. Yeah, I had to tell myself, like, everything I said was very honest. The first part was inappropriate, but everything else was very true.

So at the end of the day, don't irritate me. It's going to be in depth. I will do my best to not irritate you today. Wow. But not only that, you have, like, you have, when you're on the show, I mean, we haven't really ever hung out in real life, but like when you're there, it's like you punch the clock and you're there for one reason which is it's very rare to see somebody that locked in and that like you're just so you're just locked in you're you're doing work and it's awesome to

see you brought some MTV energy from a CBS background and we love it big fans I told you last time I was like I'm a huge fan so still am and I don't dislike Olivia at all I just me neither well I would have never known so for people like me, this is where it gets a little complicated because I adore you. I really care for you. I feel the same way about Olivia. But then these things happen and we have to talk about her because it's on camera. So we will.

We definitely will. I think also sometimes because I can vouch for this, there's people that like in normal life, you're like, oh, wow, like I like that person. But when you get into like a competitive atmosphere, then you don't. And the one thing that I, you know, she pulled the B word out. Oh, who? About me? No, she called you a bully.

Oh, yeah. I saw that. I don't know. Like, this is victim, the victim stuff that I don't care for. I don't, I don't like the bully word. Yeah. You know what was bullying? When three girls threw another girl's suitcase over the banister, that's bully. I don't really feel like bullying what was a good choice for it.

You guys know what it's like in that house. I have my opinions on it, but we'll get it to tune in depth. You're going to have to stay locked in for that. You're at the stay locked in for that. You know, that's not, that's not free preview material. That's, you know, got to get to tier two for that. So let's talk about, start with this episode. We come back from the elimination where we see Aviv and Yermie take John A and Gabe out the game.

You had campaigned hard for Theo and Adrian in that instance. How close was that to becoming a reality? If Gabe have not staked that claim, Theo would have been out of there, Theo and Adrian. Oh, for sure. That would have been perfect. You know, we knew. We can't say we knew, but no one was surprised when we saw a climbing wall for Yermie. And.

Yeah. No one was surprised. So that was the perfect move to make. And for me, thinking about, okay, we have permanent partners now. The game is going to start going fast because there's two people going to home each time. We don't have votes to waste. We can't sit around and wait the finals around the corner. Not that Theo and Adrian are top competitors for the final.

That's what I was going to ask you. No, it's not that. But it's that for me, the way I was seeing the game, Theo out of the way. completes the divide in the house. It means turbo can't flip anywhere. There's nowhere for him to go. He has to vote with us the rest of the time. It takes people like Leo, who had a very close connection to Adrian, had a very close connection

to Jake. It puts him in a space where do I want to go to the wrong side of the numbers or do I just want to lock in over here and make it happen? And then, you know, it frees things up because at the end of the day, do we care if Anisa and Jake go to the final? I don't. But can I have you in this game when there's four of you that can play together? One person is always willing to flip over there.

Now three votes can send somebody into elimination. No, we can't have that. So that's, for me, that's what Theo was. That makes more sense now. The whole time I'm like, this guy couldn't run for five minutes through a maze. But it's his connections to the game. It's those people that are always on the edge of flipping one way or the other that for a person like me who comes into the game, I don't have a number one. I don't have personal connections

with these people. I met most of them for the first time here. If people start getting, you know, a little antsy about voting for a particular person, that just means it's more likely for somebody to say, let's go with Michaela, and now I'm the easy one. So for me, Theo, get them out of there and it forces a divide, and then it actually opens the game up because then people have to say, does it make sense to keep going after this small group of people, or are there bigger threats that could win a final that we might want to get out of here. It just shifts the game to the next place. Do you think that Leo even has a voice now that he's with Ashley?

Leo actually does have a voice. Here's a funny thing. Because we don't see that. You don't see it. It makes it look like Leo's like Ashley's running the show. Yeah, no. Ashley, one, you don't want to be on Ashley's bad side, right? She'll crash out, right?

But on the other side, Leo, Leo's perspective, was important. If Leo had stood ten toes down on anything, it would have ruined the vote. Leo was always, everybody always knew where Leo stood. Everybody always knew who he was not going to vote for. And it was just a matter of, you had to coax him into things. Like that vote where he voted for Adrian and Theo for the first time, that was not an easy thing. It wasn't like it showed on TV where Ashley just said, this is what we're doing. It was a multi-phase, multi-day thing. It was the night before Hey, Leo, I heard something going around. I don't want to say it.

Go to America. America says, this person said your name, right? Now Leo's like, huh, Leo has to think, is America lying or is America telling the truth? Here comes Adrian trying to cover her trail. Like, there was a whole list of things that went on to where we basically let him know, you're protecting people who, if their backs against the wall, they're not going to protect you. So you might as well shoot first. And that's what he did.

The preemptive. Yeah, he shot first. And it looks like people strong-armed him. But no, we just opened his eyes. These are your friends. But if it comes down to you or them, they're picking them. So you pick you. I might say he got strong-armed.

But, I mean, you're telling me that he's making his own decision. And we'll definitely get to Cabor of Leo for sure. But once that elimination was set, and it was Johnny and Gabe versus Jeremy and Aviv. Who did you actually want to win that? Now, once it was set and why? You know, two things can be true at the same time. Like, two things can be true. Jeremy and Aviv, I could trust them further than Gabe.

Like, Jonei at this point had nowhere to go, right? So I felt comfortable like I can bring Jone in, but Gabe, he just had people he felt like he could listen to, and those are the people that were screwing them over. And he's one of those people that you have to, he has to watch it back to learn, right? And that's too slow for me. We're here right now. people that are going to make moves that are going to understand what's going on and do the right things. Who cares if he apologizes at the reunion? Yeah, it's too late. I need it now. I need it now.

Like, I want my check every week. I need you a check, you know? Yeah. So it was, there was an issue both ways, but ultimately it's like, come on back of even Yeramy because I need you for the numbers. Like they're more trustworthy as a team. I would have taken Jonnais without Gabe any day. Yeah. But. Because she'll do what she has to do to survive. She's very quick to be like, She will adapt. She'll adapt. She'll adapt. And she knew what time it was.

As soon as Derek left, that was really her person. And she realized, I don't have a home in the closet. Right. Right, right. Because Olivia's not going to take care of her on behalf of. No. She's going to use her for a vote. Exactly.

And that's what Gabe really, he got used. He got used big time. Yeah. And, you know, funny thing, they didn't, of course, they didn't show it. That concludes the free preview of the Zach Nichols podcast. So go to Patreon and subscribe to see the rest of who. the shit that we talk. Go do it now.