Daniele Donato

Biography

Daniele Donato was born on August 20, 1986. Her estranged father Dick Donato or better known as the notorious "Evel Dick" appeared on Big Brother with her for Season 8 in 2007. When Daniele was first on Big Brother she worked as a waitress in Huntington Beach, California. The two re-appeared on the show for Season 13, but her father had to leave the first week due to personal reasons. She is currently in college working towards her career. Aside from Big Brother, Daniele has appeared on the television show Reality Obsessed.

Big Brother 8

Daniele joined Big Brother 8 in 2007, along with her father, Dick. On Day 7, the House competed for the Power of Veto. Kail, as HoH, and Amber and Carol, as the nominees, automatically got to play for the power. During the random draw, Kail got "Houseguest Choice", and picked Daniele, Carol drew Nick's name, and Amber drew Jameka. During the competition, called "Hide and Seek Veto", players had one minute to hide a veto box inside the Big Brother house. When all six veto boxes were hidden, one by one, the players had a time limit to find another player's veto box. The player whose veto box was not found would win the Power of Veto. When it came down to Kail and Daniele, Daniele found Kail's Veto box, making Daniele the winner of the first Power of Veto competition. Meanwhile, Jen was beginning to get on her fellow Houseguest nerves, leading to her having confrontations with Dick and Nick. Despite Daniele considering using the Veto to backdoor Jen, on Day 9 Daniele chose to leave the nominations intact.

On Day 14, Jen nominated Daniele and Dick for eviction, deeming them as the most negative people in the House. On Day 15, the Houseguests competed for the Power of Veto. During the random drawing, Amber, Mike and Joe were chosen to play for the power. During the competition, called "Cutthroat Christmas", players had to slide a curling stone down an icy path toward a red line. Each round, the least accurate slider would be eliminated from the game and choose a present from under a giant Christmas tree. The last player standing got the pick of the prizes won. Daniele won the Power of Veto, Amber won a chance to be handcuffed to another HouseGuest, Dick won a plasma TV, Mike won a date with another HouseGuest, Jen won a red unitard, and Joe won a slop pass. On Day 17, Daniele used the Veto on herself, and Jen put Joe up in her place.

On Day 34, the Houseguest competed in the Endurance Head of Household, called Times Up, in which houseguests hung upside down on rocking pendulums. If a player fell off their pendulum, or their torso was raised above the bar, they would be eliminated. The last player standing would be the new Head of Household. After nearly two hours, Daniele won the title of HoH. On Day 35, Kail and Jen were nominated together for the third week in a row. Daniele confirmed to Kail that she was just a pawn, and she did, indeed have a backdoor plan in mind. Daniele felt that Eric was the one responsible for casting the second vote against Kail, which everyone attributed to her best friend Nick. While picking players for the Veto Competition, Daniele drew Jameka's name, Jen drew Dustin's name, and Kail drew Zach's name. The competition titled The Numbers Don't Lie saw players having to bid how many hours they would be willing to do a horrid task. Each task would get more and more difficult. If a player had the lowest, they would be eliminated, but if a player was in the middle, they would not have to do the task. Jen won the Power of Veto after she agreed to wearing a bunny suit for 120 hours, along with Daniele, Kail, and Zach, dump smelly funk on herself for 24 times every hour,along with Daniele, Jameka, Kail, and Zach eat slop for 720 hours, along with Kail, and receive only half of the $500,000 prize money in the event she won Big Brother. Jameka and Kail gave up the right to compete in the next 5 HoH competitions, but failed to win the veto. On Day 38, Jen used the Power of Veto on herself, and Daniele put Eric up, just as she had planned. Despite the Donato's wishes, however, their former allies turned on them, and on Day 41, Kail was evicted by a close vote of 4 to 3, receiving the votes of Jen, Dick and Zach.

On Day 42, Dick and Daniele were nominated for eviction. During the Veto competition Shot for Shot, players had to drink concoctions to secure shots in a croquet game. The player who scored the most points in the croquet game, would win the Power of Veto. Dick beat Dustin out by one point and won the Power of Veto. On day 45, he chose to use the Power of Veto to save his daughter, Daniele.

On Day 48, Daniele won the Strange Visitors HoH Competition, in which the night before the eviction, the HouseGuests were visited by a series of odd characters, including the Mad Hatter. The visitors said and did things that pertained to the HoH competition. The contestants were asked a series of true-or-false questions about the visitors. If a HouseGuest was incorrect, they would be eliminated, unless everyone got it wrong. After winning the title, Dick and Daniele made a final four deal with showmantic partners Eric and Jessica, thus the "Little Julie Chens" alliance was formed. On Day 49, Daniele nominated Amber and Jameka for eviction. During the Slop Pong food competition, the House split into the read and blue teams. The red team consisted of Dick, Eric, Jessica, and Zach while the blue team had Amber, Daniele, Jameka, and Jen. Donning togas, the HouseGuests had to shoot a volleyball across a net and into ten trash cans on the other side. The team that reaches ten before the other, would win food for the week. The red team beat out the blue team in a close game. Daniele was not put on slop as she was HoH. On Day 50, Daniele and Amber won a special prize during the Power of Veto competition, and they later learned it was a chance to compete on the new reality game show Power of 10. Daniele won the Golden Power of Veto. On Day 52, Daniele chose to change her nominations by removing Amber from the block and nominating Jen in her place. On Day 52, Jen was penalized for going against the slop restriction and was given a penalty eviction vote against her. Later that day, she also engaged in a controversial fight with houseguest Dick, in which she was burned by one of his cigarettes. On Day 55, Jen was evicted by a unanimous vote of 6 to 0.

On Day 64, previous houseguest Janelle entered the House to host the Veto competition called The Janelle-O-Vision, in which players were spun on a pink chair and had to depict which two HouseGuests' face made a mixed face swirl. The player with the most swirls would win the Power of Veto. With seven swirls correct, Daniele won her fourth Power of Veto of the season. On Day 66, she chose to keep the nominations intact.

After Zach won, him and Jameka agreed to try to evict Dick or Daniele, and on Day 70 the father-daughter duo were nominated for the third time. On Day 71, during the final Power of Veto competition, called Big Brother Decoder, the final four HouseGuests had to match a clue to a HouseGuest's face that interlocked with another HouseGuest's face. Once that is done, the HouseGuest must twist the knob and match the HouseGuest with the corresponding number. The first HouseGuest to correctly label the many seconds they've been in the Big Brother house will win the Power of Veto. Daniele was the first to crack the code and won her fifth Power of Veto. This meant that Daniele is tied with Janelle for the highest number of Veto's won in a single season. On Day 74, Daniele chose to use the Power of Veto on her father instead of herself, making it the second time this season, and the third in Big Brother History, that a nominee won the Golden Power of Veto and left themselves on the block. Dick immediately cast the sole vote against Jameka, and she was subsequently evicted.

Dick was the winner of the final HoH competition, and immediately evicted Zach from the house, making Dick and Daniele the Final Two.

On Day 77, the final two HouseGuests attended a three-hour session in which the jury members, connected via satellite from the jury house, asked the pair questions about the game and why the jury members should give either of them their respective votes. On Day 81, during the live season finale, Dick won the game with a vote of 5 to 2, with Daniele only receiving the votes of Jen and Jameka.

Daniele Donato is tied with Janelle Pierzina with five Veto Wins.

Since then, she became the co-host of HouseCalls on Mondays with Gretchen Massey and has since worked towards her college degree.

Big Brother 13

In 2011, Daniele and her father, Dick were asked to appear on Big Brother 13, where they and other notable duos from past Big Brother seasons returned to play doubles with eight new houseguests for a chance to win the grand prize of $500,000.

Before the duos were announced, Daniele hosted a show on Superpass with BB 12's Ragan Fox called Rumor Control. People could call in and ask questions about the new season of Big Brother. The callers were unaware that Daniele was in sequester when she was hosting the second episode of Rumor Control. Her best friend Annie from BB12 took over for Dani on Rumor Control for the last episode, when Dani was actually in the BB House.

On Day 6 of BB 13, Dick had to leave the show for personal reasons, leaving Daniele without a partner, and with a Golden Key. Shortly after, Daniele turned on her own alliance of Veterans from past seasons, and formed a new alliance with Kalia Booker and Porsche Briggs. Shortly after Dominic's eviction the HouseGuests were informed that the Golden Key twist was over and all HouseGuests except for Rachel competed in the next Head of Household competition Big Brother Slalom. The HouseGuests had to hold on to a wall while standing on ‘skis’ which moved from side to side while having snow blowing on them at random times. The first five eliminated HouseGuests had to choose a numbered snowball four of which contained a punishment while one contained a prize. Lawon, Brendon and Jordan picked the snowballs that contained Have-Not tickets, Adam was required to wear an elf suit for a week and Jeff won $10,000. On Day 28 Daniele nominated Brendon and Rachel for eviction and the next day Brendon won his third Power of Veto competition Time's Up. The six players had to complete mini-tasks based on previous competitions in as short a time as possible. Brendon chose to save Rachel from eviction on Day 31 Daniele chose Jordan as the replacement nominee. Brendon was evicted from the House on Day 34 with Rachel and Porsche as the only two votes to evict Jordan.

Daniele won her second Head of Household competition, Count on America. Shelly and Adam were nominated for eviction the next day by Daniele. Daniele and Jeff threw the Power of Veto competition to Adam, Big Brother Cornhole, on Day 43 which saved Adam from eviction on Day 46. During the competition, HouseGuests competing won a variety of prizes including, a Caribbean Vacation for Kalia, $5,000 for Jeff, a Veto ticket for Daniele ensuring her a spot in next week's Veto competition, 24-hour solitary confinement for Shelly with the privilege of receiving a phone call from home, and a "humilitard" to be worn by Jordan for a week. Daniele then nominated Brendon for eviction alongside Shelly. After a 5-1 vote in Shelly's favor, Brendon was once again evicted from the house and became the first Jury member.

However, after Jeff won Power of Veto he removed Porsche from the block and replaced her with Daniele, completing his plan to "backdoor" Daniele. On Day 55, Daniele was evicted on a 3-2 vote, becoming the second Jury member.

Personal life

Donato is the daughter of Big Brother season 8 winner Dick Donato. Donato was in a relationship with her former housemate, Nick Starcevic after the season ended in 2007. On Big Brother 9, she and her father were interviewed, and she confirmed that she and Starcevic were no longer together. After meeting on Big Brother season 13 and becoming best friends, Daniele married her former housemate Dominic Briones on January 19, 2013 in Huntington Beach, California.