Bigg Boss 3 Telugu
Bigg Boss Telugu Season 3: winner, top 5, contestants and every elimination
Rahul Sipligunj won Bigg Boss Telugu 3 nine months before Naatu Naatu made him a name outside Telugu music. He outlasted 16 contestants over 105 days on Star Maa, in Nagarjuna Akkineni's first season in the chair, and beat Sreemukhi on 3 November 2019, with Chiranjeevi on stage to hand over the trophy. Bigg Boss 10 Telugu voting has the current poll and results.
- 17
- contestants
- 105
- days
- 13
- evictions
- 5
- finalists
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 winner
Winner
Rahul Sipligunj
- Known for
- Playback singer, and one of the two voices on Naatu Naatu
- Entered
- Launch night to the finale, all 105 days
- Prize
-
- ₹50 lakh in cash
Chiranjeevi handed him the trophy on finale night, at the end of a four-and-a-half-hour broadcast.
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 host
Nagarjuna Akkineni
Host of Bigg Boss Telugu 3
- Tenure
- Bigg Boss Telugu 3 was his first season in the chair, and he has held it ever since
- Missed one weekend
- Ramya Krishnan hosted while he was in Spain for his 60th birthday
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 logo
Season 3's on-air mark set the show's eye in a gold iris over a red field, with the numeral closing the wordmark. Star Maa ran it through all 105 days of 2019.
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 finalists: the top 5
Five housemates were still inside on finale night, 3 November 2019. Four of them had walked in on launch night and stayed; the fifth, Ali Reza, had been voted out on day 49 and brought back on day 68.
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Rahul Sipligunj
Winner, took the trophy from Chiranjeevi on finale night
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Sreemukhi
1st runner-up, beaten by Rahul Sipligunj in the final two
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Baba Bhaskar
2nd runner-up, third out on finale night
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Varun Sandesh
3rd runner-up, second out on finale night
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Ali Reza
4th runner-up, first out on finale night
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 elimination list, by day
Each bar is one housemate's run, from the day they walked in to the day they walked out, on the season's own 105-day clock. Counted in days inside the house, not broadcast dates or week numbers, because the outlets disagree on the week numbers and agree on the dates. Twelve housemates left for good before finale night. The thirteenth eviction is the notch on Ali Reza's bar, day 49, 19 days before he came back.
- Hema Evicted, the season's first Day 7
- Jaffar Babu Evicted Day 14
- Tamanna Simhadri Evicted Day 21
- Rohini Noni Reddy Evicted Day 28
- Ashu Reddy Evicted Day 35
- Shilpa Chakravarthy Evicted Day 56
- Himaja Evicted Day 63
- Ravi Krishna Evicted Day 70
- Punarnavi Bhupalam Evicted Day 77
- Mahesh Vitta Evicted Day 84
- Vithika Sheru Evicted Day 91
- Shiva Jyothi Evicted, the last exit before the finale Day 98
- Ali Reza 4th runner-up Day 105
- Varun Sandesh 3rd runner-up Day 105
- Baba Bhaskar 2nd runner-up Day 105
- Sreemukhi 1st runner-up Day 105
- Rahul Sipligunj Winner Day 105
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 contestants: all 17
Finishing order, furthest first; only the top five have confirmed places, and the rest are ordered by how long each lasted in the house. Wild cards carry the day they walked in; everyone else came in on launch night.
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Rahul Sipligunj
Playback singer, and one of the two voices on Naatu Naatu
Reached the finale, day 105
Winner Wikipedia @sipligunjrahul -
Sreemukhi
Television presenter and actress, Julai and Prema Ishq Kaadhal
Reached the finale, day 105
1st runner-up Wikipedia @sreemukhi -
Baba Bhaskar
Dance choreographer and director, Magadheera and Kuppathu Raja
Reached the finale, day 105
2nd runner-up Wikipedia @iambababaskar -
Varun Sandesh
Film actor, Happy Days and Kotha Bangaru Lokam
Reached the finale, day 105
3rd runner-up Wikipedia @itsvarunsandesh -
Ali Reza
Model and actor, lead in Gayakudu
Reached the finale, day 105
4th runner-up Wikipedia @i.ali.reza -
Shiva Jyothi
Television anchor, Teenmaar Savitri on V6 News
Left on day 98
Evicted @iam.savithri -
Vithika Sheru
Film actress in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada
Left on day 91
Evicted Wikipedia @vithikasheru -
Mahesh Vitta
Comedian and actor, Fun Bucket
Left on day 84
Evicted @maheshvitta -
Punarnavi Bhupalam
Actress, Uyyala Jampala and Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju
Left on day 77
Evicted Wikipedia @punarnavib -
Ravi Krishna
Television actor, Mogali Rekulu and Varudhini Parinayam
Left on day 70
Evicted Wikipedia @ravikrishna_official -
Himaja
Actress, Shatamanam Bhavati and Chitralahari
Left on day 63
Evicted Wikipedia @itshimaja -
Shilpa Chakravarthy
Television anchor and actress, Dance Baby Dance
Left on day 56
Wild card, day 43
Evicted Wikipedia (తెలుగు) @tvshilpa -
Ashu Reddy
Internet personality, known for her lip-sync videos
Left on day 35
Evicted @ashu_uuu -
Rohini Noni Reddy
Comedian and actress, Jabardasth
Left on day 28
Evicted @actressrohini -
Tamanna Simhadri
Model and transgender rights activist
Left on day 21
Wild card, day 7
Evicted @tamannasimhadri -
Jaffar Babu
Journalist and interviewer, TV9's Mukha Mukhi
Left on day 14
Evicted @itlu_mee_jaffar -
Hema
Actress and comedian in Telugu films
Left on day 7
Evicted Wikipedia
How Bigg Boss Telugu 3 voting, nominations and evictions worked
The week ran the way it has run in Telugu ever since: housemates nominated each other, a captain and the tasks around him decided who was safe, the public voted through the app, and the weekend episode named who was going.
Nominations
Housemates nominated each other for eviction at the start of the week, and Bigg Boss could add a name to the list himself. Rohini Noni Reddy was put straight into the day-28 nominations for discussing them, which the rules bar, and went out that weekend. A wild card could arrive with the power too. Shilpa Chakravarthy walked in on day 43 able to nominate a housemate directly and used it on Ali Reza, who had gone six weeks without facing a vote. He was gone by day 49. The Bigg Boss Telugu 3 nominations record covers all 15 weeks, Rahul Sipligunj's 29 nominations included.
House Captain
One housemate held the captaincy each week, won in a task and worth immunity from that week's eviction. Baba Bhaskar took it in a task against Himaja and Sreemukhi, said he did not want the job, and was talked into it by Varun Sandesh and Rahul Sipligunj. All three of them finished in the top four.
The public vote
Nominees went to a public vote, which ran through the Disney+ Hotstar app, the service now called JioHotstar, with a missed-call number as a second route. The housemate with the fewest votes left at the weekend episode. The how to vote guide covers the method step by step, and official voting versus a fan poll explains why the percentages that circulated each week were trend estimates, not the count that decided an eviction.
Evictions, a fake one, and a housemate who came back
13 evictions across 14 weekends, so one weekend ended with nobody leaving. That was day 42, the one Nagarjuna missed. Ali Reza was voted out on day 49, two housemates broke down on air asking for him back and viewers said they would stop watching without him, and the show brought him in again on day 68. He finished fifth. Rahul Sipligunj was announced evicted on the Saturday of week nine and then told it was fake. He went to the secret room and was back with the housemates inside two days.
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 at a glance
- Winner
- Rahul Sipligunj
- Runner-up
- Sreemukhi
- Host
- Nagarjuna Akkineni (his first season in the chair)
- Guest host
- Ramya Krishnan, for the one weekend Nagarjuna missed
- Premiere
- 21 July 2019
- Grand finale
- 3 November 2019
- Length
- 105 days
- Total entrants
- 17 — 15 on launch night, 2 wild cards
- Wild cards
- 2, entering on days 7 and 43
- Evictions
- 13 eviction nights, 12 housemates gone for good
- Re-entries
- 1 — Ali Reza, on day 68
- Channel
- Star Maa
- Streaming
- Disney+ Hotstar, now JioHotstar
- Winner's prize
- ₹50 lakh in cash
Entry order: launch night and the two wild cards
- Launch night, 21 July 2019
- 15 housemates, in this order: Shiva Jyothi, Ravi Krishna, Ashu Reddy, Jaffar Babu, Himaja, Rahul Sipligunj, Rohini Noni Reddy, Baba Bhaskar, Punarnavi Bhupalam, Hema, Ali Reza, Mahesh Vitta, Sreemukhi, Varun Sandesh, Vithika Sheru. Shiva Jyothi walked in first and lasted 98 days; Rahul Sipligunj was sixth through the door and won; the last two in were a married couple.
- Wild card, day 7
- Tamanna Simhadri — model and transgender rights activist.
- Wild card, day 43
- Shilpa Chakravarthy — television anchor and actress, Dance Baby Dance.
- Day 68
- Ali Reza came back in, 19 days after the vote sent him out, and reached the finale. He is the only Season 3 housemate to enter the house twice.
What defined Bigg Boss Telugu 3
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 ratings: 17.9 at launch, 18.29 at the finale
The season opened at a 17.9 rating, bigger than either season before it, and the finale was reported at 18.29 across four and a half hours, with the hour Chiranjeevi was on drawing 22.4 by itself. Those numbers came with a "highest ever in the Bigg Boss franchise" line attached. The same line was attached to Season 4's finale in 2020 and Season 7's in 2023. Which BB season has the highest TRP in Telugu goes through the competing claims.
Nagarjuna's first season, and the one weekend he missed
Jr NTR hosted the first season and Nani the second; Nagarjuna Akkineni took the chair for this one and has not given it up since, which makes Season 3 the start of the run that reaches Season 10. He missed exactly one weekend of it, spent in Spain for his 60th birthday, and Ramya Krishnan hosted in his place. Viewers liked her enough to ask on social media that she keep the job. Nobody was evicted that weekend. The Bigg Boss Telugu winners list has every champion and every host.
Tamanna Simhadri, the first trans woman in the Telugu house
She entered as the season's first wild card on day 7 and left on day 21, two weeks in the house and the first time a trans woman had played the Telugu edition. Priyanka Singh became the second two years later on Season 5 and lasted 91 days.
A married couple in the house at the same time
Varun Sandesh and Vithika Sheru had been married four years when they walked in together on launch night, the last two of the 15. She lasted 91 days and he lasted all 105. She was voted out two weekends before the finale he reached, and he finished fourth. They were nominated together in the very first week and both survived it.
Bigg Boss Telugu 3 voting and the Season 10 vote
Season 3's vote ran through the Disney+ Hotstar app, which is now JioHotstar, and the same app has carried every season since, along with the missed-call route. The latest Bigg Boss Telugu voting results are on our homepage, and Season 10 is confirmed for Sunday 6 September 2026 (announced by Star Maa). The how to vote guide covers the method in detail, the Season 9 record is the most recent completed season, and the Bigg Boss Telugu winners list has every champion and every cheque.