BBMzansi 2025 ‘Umlilo’ Grand Prize Reinstated to R2 Million

The Big Brother Mzansi Season 5 ‘Umlilo’ grand prize money has been reinstated to R2 million – much to the delight of the five finalists, viewers, and fans.

At the beginning of the season, the grand prize was set at R2 million but it was later reduced after the housemates spent portions of it in the Boiler Room, a room where housemates could purchase extras using funds from the grand prize.

Earlier this week, Big Brother summoned all the finalists to the living room area and played them a video clip showing how the housemates spent chunks of the grand prize in the Boiler Room.

Big Brother addressed the housemates saying;

You have all worked incredibly hard to be here and Big Brother is proud of each one of you. In just a few days, one of you will walk away as the grand prize winner.

As you know, the grand prize was set at R2 million at the start of the show. Big Brother introduced the Boiler Room and the Mystery envelopes that led to spending money from the grand prize.

Big Brother would like to take you through the journey of the Boiler Room spending.

Below is a table showing which housemates spent money from the grand prize in the Boiler Room.

Housemate	Amount Spent
Jojo	R50,000
Sweet Guluva	R0
Tyrone	R0
Mandy Hagan	R50,000
Siphesihle	R50,000
Melino	R50,000
Abobo	R50,000
Philile	R0
Beekay	R50,000
Uyanda	R50,000
Nsuku	R50,000
Nate	R0
Swiss	R0
Mshini	R0

In the Boiler Room, Melino also got a red envelope with a high-stakes message that had the potential of changing his fate in the Big Brother Mzansi house. The envelope read: “Ticket to the Final”. This allowed Melino to purchase a ticket to the grand finale for R250,000.

However, Melino’s ticket to the finale was to only come to play on Monday 3 March 2025 (Day 50 of the season). Sadly, Melino was evicted on Sunday 3 March 2025 (Day 49 of the season), a day before his finale ticket became active.

After his eviction and while on stage chatting with the Big Brother Mzansi Season 5 host, Smash Afrika, Melino decided to return his finale ticket to the house – something that also helped with efforts of restoring the grand prize to its initial amount of R2 million.

Furthermore, the housemates had to participate in challenges like the moving 100,000-step task to retrieve more funds.

During his diary session this week on Day 64 of the season, Uyanda told Big Brother that watching the Boiler Room clip made him feel bad seeing housemates who didn’t contribute to spending the grand prize money but worked hard to put money back into the pot.

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