I’m going to be my ethical, honest, low-key self.’ But who knows, after six and seven weeks of having been betrayed by somebody and [having] plots hatched against me and being deprived of food except for peanut butter and jelly?

[6] Allison Grodner later stated "[We] have thrown in just a few twists and turns, just a few new roadblocks in terms of our rules and format so that the people coming into the house who have worked out a perfect strategy—and believe me, all of them think they have—are in for a few surprises.

[10] When asked about the authenticity of the story-lines used in the episodes, Shaprio claimed "We're sticklers for maintaining the purity we do have in terms of how little we interfere with the lives of the 12 people in our house.

[17] Due to controversies surrounding the second season, this round of applications involved more in depth questions about previous arrests or legal troubles.

"[19] Thom Bierdz, a cast member of the soap opera The Young and the Restless and Rob Cesternino, who would later appear on Survivor: The Amazon were among the over 5,000 applicants for Big Brother 3.

[41] The HoH for the week has this room, which features perks such as privacy, laundry service, and pictures from home.

[42] The Diary Room featured a light green chair, along with the bright purple walls on display throughout the house.

[26] Big Brother is a game show in which a group of contestants, referred to as HouseGuests, lived in a custom built "house", constantly under video surveillance.

[46] The Head of Household for each week would have luxuries such as their own personal bedroom and free laundry service, but was responsible for nominating two HouseGuests for eviction.

[50] Unlike other versions of Big Brother, the HouseGuests may discuss the nomination and eviction process openly and freely.

[51] The HouseGuests also competed in food competitions, in which the losers were required to solely eat peanut butter and jelly for the rest of the week.

[54] The format of the series was mainly seen as a social experiment, and required HouseGuests to interact with others who may have differing ideals, beliefs, and prejudices.

That night, they participated in their first food competition, in which they entered the backyard to find a table full of groceries and twelve shopping bags.

They put on bathing suits provided by Big Brother, which featured a blue top and red bottoms.

[67] A group must jump into a pool and swap their suits with a member of the opposite sex to ensure that they had the same color of suit, meaning that upon exiting the male team members should have on a female's top and bottom of matching color, and women should have a matching male's top and bottom.

[72][73] HouseGuests competed in the "Luau Luxury" competition, in which they split into two teams and were required to figure out which five items were missing from the house.

[68] Gerry removed Marcellas from the block, as he felt he had been nominated for "racist and homophobic" reasons; Amy was the replacement nominee.

During the Power of Veto ceremony, Danielle left the nominations intact, meaning either Josh or Tonya would be evicted.

[85][86] On Day 21, HouseGuests competed in the "Gastronomic Batik" food competition, in which they placed over-sized game chips into a glass container.

(Amy and Eric said they would give up half of the grand-prize money should they win and go on the PB&J diet for the remaining 42 days, but they were not required to do so.

Chiara, as the outgoing Head of Household, would dump buckets filled with items such as dead squids into the pool.

[115] The America's Vote this week allowed one HouseGuest to receive a video message from home; Danielle was selected.

[133] HouseGuests later participated in a food competition titled "Squeeze Play" which required them to soak up water and transfer it to pools while wearing a sponge suit.

[162] The August 25 episode, which featured Sheryl Crow making a guest appearance to perform for the HouseGuests, earned the series its best ratings in the age 18–49 demographic, and had a total of 10.24 million viewers.

[163] Big Brother 3 later won all three of its time periods in viewers, households and most key demographics from the week ending September 1, 2002.

[167] This made it the second season in a row where HouseGuests with criminal records were present, a controversial event that had occurred the previous year.

[170][171][172] HouseGuest Tonya Paoni was also due in court in late August but was evicted from the show before the hearing and was able to attend.

HouseGuests such as Chiara later speculated that Amy had been warned about the plan before entering the house and had been told by producers to win the Head of Household competition.

This led to the HouseGuests seeing all of Danielle's Diary Room sessions in which she spoke very poorly of them and gloated about how she lied to their faces and betrayed them.

This is often credited as the main reason that Danielle lost to Lisa, and since this season evicted contestants have not been able to watch footage between their booting and their return to serve on the final jury.