'Big Brother' Renewed for Season 23

Julie Chen
Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images

Julie Chen Moonves will return as host of the CBS reality show.

Big Brother is locked in for another season.

Ahead of Wednesday's All-Stars finale, CBS has renewed the long-running competition series for a 23rd season to premiere in summer 2021.

Julie Chen Moonves, who has hosted Big Brother since its inception in 2000, will return to lead the new season. 

“At Big Brother, we always say ‘expect the unexpected,’ but 2020 gave us our biggest challenge to date! We could not be prouder of the entire team who delivered a fantastic season under such extreme circumstances,” said Mitch Graham, Senior Vice President of Alternative Programming at CBS Entertainment. “It feels fitting for this unprecedented season to conclude with an announcement of the show’s return next summer.”

The All-Stars season, which returned 16 former houseguests from past seasons, including Janelle Pierzina, Kaysar Ridha, Ian Terry and Dani Donato Briones, faced an especially unique challenge in presenting a successful season amid a pandemic. The houseguests were quarantined and tested multiple times prior to entering the Big Brother bubble, masked during post-eviction interviews with Chen Moonves and there was no live studio audience.

"As we speak right now, [the houseguests are] quarantining by themselves in homes that we've rented for them," Chen Moonves told ET in August, just days before season 22 officially kicked off. "They're getting tested every few days. They will go in once they've been clean and clear for at least 14 days and then even once they get in the house, they're still going to be tested. They have no contact with anyone."

"Everyone is working in a pod, and those pods basically stay together and don't cross-mingle with any other pods," executive producer Rich Meehan said of the crew working behind the scenes. "No one is living on the compound. So people are going home at the end of their shift."

Big Brother follows a group of people living together in a house outfitted with 94 cameras and more than 113 microphones, recording their every move 24 hours a day. Each week, a houseguest is voted out of the house, with the last remaining houseguest receiving the grand prize of $500,000. 

Big Brother: All-Stars crowns a new winner on the two-hour finale Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. For more on Big Brother, watch ET's exclusive interview with Julie Chen Moonves below.

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