‘Big Brother 16’ spoilers: Frankie, Ariana Grande’s grandfather dies; implications and more

We’ve got some sad news to follow up on today that we first posted about earlier in this “Big Brother” season: After several months of poor health, contestant Frankie Grande’s grandfather has passed away. He was 90 years old.

Obviously, this is very sad news for the entire Grande family. Ariana had already taken time away from work around the 4th of July to be with her family in Florida, and while they have had some time to prepare for this, it’s still a sad and unfortunate situation and our thoughts are with all of the family.

The reality here is that we are a television news site providing some “Big Brother” updates this summer, and we still have to report on things in relation to the game. The death of Frankie’s grandfather will be a situation that the production will most likely address in some way, unless he went in there saying that he didn’t want any updates on anything in his personal life. Traditionally when there is something super-important in a houseguest’s life like a death or a significant accident involving a loved one, they will be informed of it in the Diary Room, and given an opportunity to do with this what they wish. This is at least the precedent set by what happened to Evel Dick on season 13. There haven’t been a whole lot of times where these sort of situations have impacted the game other than this, but that was an enormous one thanks to his status as a show icon.

We have a hard time imagining production not informing a house guest of a death in the family, only for them to find out later. At this point there is nothing to suggest that Frankie has been told what happened with his grandfather.

We’ll have more on this subject soon, so stay tuned. You can get further scoop over at this link, and sign up now to score additional TV news and updates via our newsletter.

Photo: CBS