‘Big Brother ’ features Niagara Falls DJ
Sixteen players housebound for show’s 11th season
Niagara Falls DJ and producer Dan Szabo is among the cast of the 11th season of “Big Brother Canada.”
He and 15 other contestants start vying for the show’s $100,000 grand prize Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Global and Stacktv, immediately following “Survivor.”
Szabo, who goes by the performing name Zabo, has been off-limits to media this week as the show prepares to film, without access to a phone. His dad, Steve, a longtime Niagara musician, said he had no idea his son was trying out for the show.
“Daniel does a lot of things, so we don’t know everything,” he said.
“On Feb. 18, I was doing a gig in Toronto and he came out and said, ‘You won’t be able to reach me for a couple weeks.’ I said,‘why’s that?’ and he says, ‘Because I’m going to be sequestered to a hotel.’
“At that point, he couldn’t even say what show it was.”
Global announced the cast along with interviews for each of them.
Szabo’s clip, which features him and his dad down by the falls, touches on his DJ career, which has seen him tour Europe and North America and score huge success in China, where he has more than a billion streams.
But he promises to be all business on the show, which is notorious for its hookups and romantic entanglements.
“I’m going in single and I plan on coming out single,” Szabo said during his interview.
Steve said he has only watched a couple episodes of “Big Brother Canada” through the years but knows Dan will play a strong social game with both the viewers and other players.
“He’s going to do great,” he said. “He always lights up a room when he comes out.
“He’s very outgoing, very funny, very disciplined in his daily routines.”
Szabo’s friend since high school Matt Guarasci concurred.
“(He’s) one of the most disciplined, hard-working and likable guys I’ve ever met,” he said. “People love his energy and are drawn in by it.
“I think he just has to be himself and he’ll win the show.”
The “Big Brother” franchise is one of TV’S most enduring reality shows. It places a group of ‘house guests’ in a specially-built home isolated from the outside world, where they’re monitored by several cameras. As the show progresses, guests are voted out of the house.
The Canadian version is hosted by Global’s Arisa Cox.
Other players this season include a 911 operator from Victoria, B.C., a yoga instructor from Calgary and a fisherman from Paradise, N.L.