Luke Valentine Addresses ‘Big Brother’ Eviction for Using Racial Slur with Bizarre Instagram Video: “Keep The Flames Stoked”

Big Brother’s 25th season wasted no time grabbing headlines for reasons both good — whoah, Cirie’s on the show?! — and bad. So far all of the bad press around the season boils down to Luke Valentine, a 30-year-old illustrator from Florida who was evicted after 8 days for breaking the show’s code of conduct. What did he do? Just casually drop a racial slur on-camera in conversation with other houseguests. The moment was caught by viewers of the show’s live feed and had to be worked into the season’s narrative at the end of its first week as Valentine was ejected from the house. Now, days after his eviction aired last Thursday, Valentine has spoken out about the incident… sort of?

In a video posted to — where else? — his Instagram Stories, a shirtless and sweaty Luke Valentine left the following message:

“Hey guys. Just letting you know I’m alive, I’ve arrived, and you gotta keep the flames stoked until next time. We can’t burn out, no, no, no. The fires of love will continue to burn, baby. So thank you for all the memes, thank you for all the support, all the kind words.”

Yep, it’s not an apology video so much as a “thank you for all the memes” video. Wouldn’t it be easy to apologize for doing something as obviously egregious as using a racial slur on national television? One would think so, but instead, Valentine says he’s going to “keep the flames stoked until next time”… which is certainly a choice.

Reminder: Valentine dropped a slur while in casual conversation with houseguest Cory Wurtenberg. As Wurtenberg described the moment in last Thursday’s episode, “It was directed toward me in a very casual, using it between friends kind of way, and I think the reaction was, ‘Yo, you gotta go to bed man.’ I walked out like, ‘Did I just hear that?'” He did just hear that, along with the rest of America.

For their part, CBS actually addressed the incident in question last week in their statement addressing the incident in question. “Luke violated the Big Brother code of conduct and there is zero tolerance in the house for using a racial slur. He has been removed from the house. His departure will be addressed in Thursday night’s show.” The departure was addressed in last Thursday night’s episode, which you can stream on Paramount+.

New episodes of Big Brother premiere on CBS on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights.