Big Brother Season 8 contestant Amber Siyavus dies aged 46
Amber Siyavus, who competed on Season 8 of Big Brother in 2007, has died aged 46.
The Clark County medical examiner in Nevada confirmed her death to Deadline, which reported the news on 12 October. Death records cited in that report state she died on 9 October at a residence in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The cause and manner of death are pending. That means the death itself has been confirmed, but officials have not yet released a formal finding on the circumstances.
Siyavus was 27 and working as a cocktail waitress in her home city of Las Vegas when she joined the cast, according to CBC reporting from August 2007. For readers who have never seen it, Big Brother is a CBS reality series, as noted by Yahoo, in which a group of contestants live together in one house under constant filming and vote each other out over a summer. Her castmates that season included Jameka Cameron. During her weeks in the house, Siyavus became known to viewers as “Whamber”.
She lasted deep into the game. She was the eighth person to be evicted and finished in seventh place overall. The season was won by Dick “Evel Dick” Donato.
The programme’s long-time host marked her passing. Julie Chen Moonves posted a remembrance of Siyavus on Instagram Reels, the short-video feature on Instagram. No further details of the tribute were reported.
Siyavus had spoken in the past about tragedy in her own family. In January 2018, her 18-year-old daughter, Lexi Tomcavage, died in an apparent suicide. That loss had been publicly reported at the time and was noted again in coverage of Siyavus’s death.
What remains unclear is limited to the official finding. With cause and manner still pending, no additional information about the circumstances on 9 October has been released. Her Season 8 run remains a matter of record: a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who entered the house at 27, stayed until the final weeks, and left as one of that summer’s most remembered housemates.
