Entertainment
Big Brother’s Zach Rance received death threats over his friendship with Frankie Grande
Zach Rance, Frankie Grande.
Thanks to Zach Rance/Instagram; Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Paramount+Big brother alum Zach Rance calls for help as he continues to receive death threats after appearing on the reality series ten years ago.
“Here I ask for help to all the people who follow me, to all the Big Brother fans, to everyone who has ever watched a season of Big brother,” Rance, 33, said in one YouTube video uploaded on Sunday, August 25. “I have been harassed non-stop for the past ten years since Big Brother was on in 2014.”
He continued: “I have received extremely specific and vulgar emails about myself and my family, and they are threatening and pose a direct threat to not only my life, but the lives of my family and the lives of my friends. It was time for me to come out. public and discuss what is going on here and ask for your help.”
Rance competed on season 16 of the CBS competition series in 2014. During the show he struck up a friendship with Frankie Grandepop star’s older brother Ariana Grande. Fans of the series loved seeing the close bond between Rance and Frankie and nicknamed them “Zankie.”
It’s hard to win Big Brother without some sort of alliance, but it’s even harder when you’re half of a showmance. However, that doesn’t stop competitors from mating with each other again and again while they’re in the house. Thank you! You have been successfully subscribed. Subscribe to newsletters Subscribe By signing up, I agree […]
“He and I had a very close friendship in the house. Lots of fans and lots of people watching Big brother I thought if we got out of the house, we would have been in a relationship,” Rance mused. “That wasn’t the case because we weren’t dating anymore after the show. And our ‘showmance’ ultimately did not come to fruition.”
Rance added that many fans were “angry” and “disappointed” that he and Frankie no longer dated after the show. Both Frankie, 41, and Rance moved on after the season ended. However, Rance began receiving a slew of emails and text messages after his contact information was leaked.
The life coach said the messages were ‘mean’ and ‘rude’, while others accused him of being ‘in the closet’. (Rance came out as bisexual in 2020.)
“These emails I was getting didn’t stop,” he said. “I got emails every day saying, ‘Zach, you’re ashamed of being a closeted gay man, you’re crazy, you should kill yourself because you’re so closeted.'”
Rance has now printed out about “four to six months of emails” and he has placed them in “huge folders.” He noted that the amount he has printed so far is not close to the total he has received in the last ten years, which is around ‘5,000’.
“These threats were getting louder, worse, more direct and more specific and it got to the point where I didn’t really know what to do,” Rance admitted. “And I was a little concerned that whoever sent these emails would cause physical harm to me or my family.”
Turn up the heat. With contestants isolated from the outside world and filmed 24/7, the Big Brother house is a recipe for explosive behavior. Thank you! You have been successfully subscribed. Subscribe to Newsletters Subscribe By signing up I agree to the Terms & Privacy Policy and to receive emails from Us Weekly Deal from the […]
In addition to receiving the threatening messages himself, Rance’s family has also received vulgar emails noting that his father and grandmother had received anti-Semitic statements. According to Rance, the emails come from an anonymous sender and he has not been able to determine the user’s IP address.
“Even though I keep fighting and even though I keep looking at the positive and using this as a kind of thing that doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger, it’s been going on for far too long,” he said. .“It’s been ten crazy years. Big brother was in 2014 and it is now 2024. And this person is still sending these emails every day.”
Rance is now calling everyone to action Big brother fans, especially those involved in the Zankie fandom, to share information with him about the potential identity of the person sending the threats.
