Bigg Boss 8 Telugu

Bigg Boss Telugu Season 8: winner, top 5, contestants and every elimination

Nikhil Maliyakkal won Bigg Boss Telugu 8 and took the biggest cheque the show has paid — one the house had to build from zero. He outlasted 21 contestants over 105 days on Star Maa, with Nagarjuna Akkineni hosting. Sixteen were voted out and one left on health grounds before the 15 December 2024 finale. Bigg Boss 10 Telugu voting has the current poll and results.

22
contestants: 105
days: 8
wild cards: 5
finalists

By Rahul Bala Published 04 Sept 2026 Updated 05 Sept 2026

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 winner

Winner

Nikhil Maliyakkal

Known for

Television actor, Gorintaku and Ammaku Teliyani Koilamma

Entered

Launch night to the finale, all 105 days

Prize

₹55 lakh, the highest winner's cash in the show's history
Maruti Suzuki Dzire

The pool started the season at zero and the housemates raised it week by week to ₹54,99,999, which Nagarjuna rounded up on finale night.

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 host

Nagarjuna Akkineni

Host of Bigg Boss Telugu 8

Tenure: Bigg Boss Telugu 8 was his sixth season in a row
Finale: Ram Charan handed Nikhil Maliyakkal the trophy on 15 December 2024

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 logo

Season 8's on-air mark set the numeral as an infinity symbol, for the Limitless format — a prize pool with no fixed ceiling. It ran under that mark on Star Maa for all 105 days.

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 finalists: the top 5

Five housemates were still inside on finale night, 15 December 2024. Two of them were wild cards who had walked in on day 35 — the closest any wild card has come to the Telugu trophy.

Nikhil Maliyakkal Winner
Gautham Krishna 1st runner-up
Nabeel Afridi 2nd runner-up
Prerana Kambam 3rd runner-up
Mukku Avinash 4th runner-up

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 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. The eight bars that start at day 35 are the Reloaded wild cards.

Bezawada Bebakka Evicted Day 7
Shekar Basha Evicted Day 14
Abhay Bethiganti Evicted Day 21
Soniya Akula Evicted Day 28
Aditya Om Evicted in the season's only mid-week eviction Day 32
Nainika Anasuru Evicted Day 35
Kirrak Seetha Evicted Day 42
Naga Manikanta Evicted Day 49
Mehaboob Shaikh Evicted Day 56
Nayani Pavani Evicted Day 63
Gangavva Left the house on health grounds Day 69
Hari Teja Evicted Day 70
Yashmi Gowda Evicted Day 84
Tasty Teja Evicted, first of the week-13 double eviction Day 90
Prithviraj Shetty Evicted, completing the week-13 double eviction Day 91
Rohini Noni Reddy Evicted, first of the week-14 double eviction Day 97
Vishnupriyaa Bhimeneni Evicted, completing the week-14 double eviction Day 98
Mukku Avinash 4th runner-up Day 105
Prerana Kambam 3rd runner-up Day 105
Nabeel Afridi 2nd runner-up Day 105
Gautham Krishna 1st runner-up Day 105
Nikhil Maliyakkal Winner Day 105

Winner Reached the finale Evicted Walked out

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 contestants: all 22

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.

Nikhil Maliyakkal

Television actor, Gorintaku and Ammaku Teliyani Koilamma

Reached the finale, day 105
Winner @nikhilmaliyakkal_official
Gautham Krishna

Actor and doctor, lead in Aakasa Veedhullo

Reached the finale, day 105

Wild card, day 35
1st runner-up @actorgauthamkrishna
Nabeel Afridi

YouTube creator behind Warangal Dairies

Reached the finale, day 105
2nd runner-up @iamnabeelafridi
Prerana Kambam

Serial actress, Krishna Mukunda Murari

Reached the finale, day 105
3rd runner-up @prerana.kambam
Mukku Avinash

Comedian and actor, Jabardasth

Reached the finale, day 105

Wild card, day 35
4th runner-up @jabardasth_avinash
Vishnupriyaa Bhimeneni

Actress and television presenter, Pove Pora and Dayaa

Left on day 98
Evicted @vishnupriyabhimeneni
Rohini Noni Reddy

Comedian and actress, Jabardasth

Left on day 97

Wild card, day 35
Evicted @actressrohini
Prithviraj Shetty

Television actor, Nagapanchami

Left on day 91
Evicted @prithvirajshetty19
Tasty Teja

Food vlogger and comedian, Jabardasth

Left on day 90

Wild card, day 35
Evicted @tastyteja
Yashmi Gowda

Serial actress, Naga Bhairavi and Krishna Mukunda Murari

Left on day 84
Evicted @yashmigowda
Hari Teja

Actress and television presenter

Left on day 70

Wild card, day 35
Evicted Wikipedia @actress_hariteja
Gangavva

YouTube creator, My Village Show

Left on day 69

Wild card, day 35
Walked out Wikipedia @gangavva
Nayani Pavani

Content creator and dancer

Left on day 63

Wild card, day 35
Evicted @nayani_pavani
Mehaboob Shaikh

Dancer and content creator

Left on day 56

Wild card, day 35
Evicted @mehaboobdilse
Naga Manikanta

Serial actor, Kasthuri

Left on day 49
Evicted @naga_manikanta_official
Kirrak Seetha

YouTube creator turned actress, played Seetha in Baby

Left on day 42
Evicted @kirrakseetha
Nainika Anasuru

Dancer and choreographer, Dhee and Dance India Dance

Left on day 35
Evicted @nainika.anasuru26
Aditya Om

Actor and filmmaker, Lahiri Lahiri Lahirilo and Preminchukunnam Pelliki Randi

Left on day 32
Evicted Wikipedia @theadityaom
Soniya Akula

Actress, George Reddy and Aasha Encounter

Left on day 28
Evicted Wikipedia @soniya.yashofficial
Abhay Bethiganti

Actor and filmmaker, played Vishnu in Pelli Choopulu

Left on day 21
Evicted
Shekar Basha

Radio jockey and activist, Big FM

Left on day 14
Evicted Wikipedia @shekarbasharj
Bezawada Bebakka

Social-media comedian

Left on day 7
Evicted @bezawada_bebakka

How Bigg Boss Telugu 8 voting, nominations and evictions worked

Season 8 opened by taking three things away: no captaincy, no immunity, no prize money. What replaced them ran for 105 days — clans led by Chiefs, a weekly nomination round, a public vote, and a pot the house had to fill itself.

Nominations

Housemates nominated each other for eviction at the start of the week, and Bigg Boss changed the shape of it almost every week rather than running one fixed process. Some weeks the nominations were tied to a physical race, some to a task with named roles, and in one late week the housemates who had already been evicted came back in to do the nominating. Nomination votes were not free either — in one week each one cost ₹50,000 off the prize pool the house was trying to build. 176 nominations were made in all, and Prithviraj Shetty spent 11 weeks on the list. See every Season 8 nomination and the names behind it.

Clans, Chiefs and shields — the season with no House Captain

On launch night Bigg Boss told the house there would be no captaincy and no immunity. What stood in its place was the clan: housemates were split into clans led by a Chief, and the biggest clan got the luxury room and skipped the household duties. Chiefs carried the powers a captain normally has — immunity in some weeks, the right to save a nominee or to nominate one directly in others — and later in the season a single Mega Chief held them. Shields moved on top of that: a Nomination Shield, an Immunity Shield, and an Eviction Shield that cancelled one weekend's eviction outright.

The public vote

Nominees went to a public vote, which ran through the Disney+ Hotstar app — the service now called JioHotstar — with missed-call numbers reported as a second route. The housemate with the fewest votes left at the weekend episode, and some weeks the bottom two faced a second vote among the housemates themselves rather than going straight out. 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, walkouts and the ticket to the finale

Not every exit came from a weekend vote. Three weekends ended in a double eviction — Gangavva with Hari Teja, Tasty Teja with Prithviraj Shetty, then Rohini Noni Reddy with Vishnupriyaa Bhimeneni a week before the finale. Aditya Om was taken out mid-week, at midnight, in the only mid-week eviction of the season, and Gangavva was not voted out at all: she left on health grounds. At the other end, Mukku Avinash won the Ticket to Finale task in week 13 and became the season's first confirmed finalist.

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 at a glance

Winner: Nikhil Maliyakkal
Runner-up: Gautham Krishna
Host: Nagarjuna Akkineni (sixth season in a row)
Concept: Limitless — a prize pool with no ceiling, built from zero
Premiere: 1 September 2024
Grand finale: 15 December 2024
Length: 105 days
Total entrants: 22
Launch night: 14, who walked in as seven buddy pairs
Wild cards: 8, all former housemates, in together on day 35
Channel: Star Maa
Streaming: Disney+ Hotstar, now JioHotstar
Winner's prize: ₹55 lakh, the highest winner's cash in the show's history, and a Maruti Suzuki Dzire

Entry order: launch night and the Reloaded wild cards

Launch night, 1 September 2024: 14 housemates, who came in as seven buddy pairs rather than one at a time, in this order: Yashmi Gowda, Nikhil Maliyakkal, Abhay Bethiganti, Prerana Kambam, Bezawada Bebakka, Shekar Basha, Aditya Om, Soniya Akula, Kirrak Seetha, Naga Manikanta, Prithviraj Shetty, Vishnupriyaa Bhimeneni, Nainika Anasuru, Nabeel Afridi.
Day 35: The Reloaded intake — eight wild cards, every one of them a former Bigg Boss Telugu housemate, brought in together as the Royal Clan while the 14 already inside became the OG Clan: Hari Teja, Tasty Teja, Nayani Pavani, Mehaboob Shaikh, Rohini Noni Reddy, Gautham Krishna, Mukku Avinash, Gangavva. Two of them reached the final five.

What defined Bigg Boss Telugu 8

Limitless: the Bigg Boss Telugu 8 prize money started at zero

Every earlier season put a fixed pot on the table. This one put nothing on it. The winner's prize began at ₹0 with no upper limit, and the housemates added to it by winning tasks and lost from it by breaking rules — they were fined ₹2 lakh in the first week alone, and had to earn their weekly ration rather than being given it. Fifteen weeks of that arithmetic ended at ₹54,99,999, rounded up to ₹55 lakh, which is the largest winner's cash in the show's Telugu run. The winners list has what every other champion took home.

The Reloaded wild cards: eight former housemates in one night

On day 35 the show did something it had never done before and brought back eight people who had already played it — Hari Teja from Season 1, Rohini Noni Reddy from Season 3, Gangavva, Mehaboob Shaikh and Mukku Avinash from Season 4, and Gautham Krishna, Tasty Teja and Nayani Pavani from Season 7. Twelve had been lined up; the housemates already inside won a Survival of the Fittest task and kept four of them out. Two of the eight who did get in finished in the top five, and one of them, Gautham Krishna, went closer to the trophy than any wild card in the show's Telugu history.

Buddies, clans and no captain

The 14 launch-night housemates walked in two at a time, as seven buddy pairs, and the wild cards later arrived as four more. Pairs fed into clans, clans were led by Chiefs, and clans dissolved and reformed as the season went on — Anthuleni Veerulu, Keratam and Akhanda in the first fortnight, Shakti and Kantara after that, then OG against Royal once the wild cards landed, and finally one house called BB. It is the only Telugu season so far to run without a House Captain.

Were Bigg Boss Telugu 8 vote counts published?

No. The show named each evicted housemate without ever publishing the vote totals. The percentages that went round every week — the ones that had Gautham Krishna leading and a nominee on nine per cent — came from unofficial trend polls, not from the count that decided the evictions. Season 9's record is on the Bigg Boss Telugu 9 page, and which BB season has the highest TRP in Telugu compares how the seasons rated.

Bigg Boss Telugu 8 voting and the Season 10 vote

Season 8's vote ran through the Disney+ Hotstar app, which is now JioHotstar, and the same app carried Season 9's. 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.