By SANDY McGEE

CUMBERLAND — The housing market may be down, but a local real estate agent’s star is rising after being accepted as a contestant for the CBS reality TV series “Big Brother 10.”

umberland resident Michelle Costa, 28, will join 12 other men and women from throughout the country on “Big Brother 10,” the season premiere of which is slated to air this Sunday, July 13.
Costa and company volunteered to be sequestered in a house on a studio lot in California as they compete for a chance to win the $500,000 grand prize.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to win, whether it’s bad, good or ugly,” Costa said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.
The second time is a charm for the 1997 graduate of Cumberland High School.
Costa has applied twice for the reality show that asks contestants to live together for weeks, monitored by more than 50 cameras in a nod toward George Orwell’s “1984.” Orwellian or otherwise, the TV housemates enter food contests in which the losers are punished with “slop,” a flavorless type of gruel.
“‘Big Brother’ will follow a group of strangers living together in a house outfitted with dozens of cameras and microphones recording their every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” according to the CBS Web site. “One by one, the houseguests will vote each other out of the house until at the end of three months, the last remaining houseguest will win the grand prize.”
Costa, a member of the cross-country and indoor and outdoor track teams in high school, is described on the show’s Web site as an “an East Coast firecracker.”
She “enjoys Portuguese food and seafood, smokes an occasional cigar and likes to listen to hip hop, rap and techno music,” according to the show’s Web site. Costa has won several competitions as a runner, including a marathon in Australia at age 15.
She is a real estate agent for DeFelice Realtors in Warwick. She previously worked for Rhode Island Foreclosure Prevention Specialists in Pawtucket.
A model and actress with more than 15 years experience, her interests include sports, running, boxing, dancing and traveling.
Costa, who is single, will be part of a group that includes: Steven Daigle, 35, a geographic consultant from Dallas; April Dowling, 30, finance manager, Higley, Ariz.; and Robert “Memphis” Garrett, 25, a mixologist and party planner from Los Angeles.
“Big Brother 10” contestants also include Dan Gheesling, 24, a high school teacher from Dearborn, Mich.; Jessie Godderz, 22, a bodybuilder from Huntington Beach, Calif.; Brian Hart, 27, a telecommunication account manager, San Francisco; Gerry MacDonald, 75, a retired marketing executive, Magnolia, Texas; and Renny Martyn, 53, a hair salon owner from Metairie, La.
Also, Bryan Ollie, 27, marketing sales representative from Bloomington, Minn.; Keesha Smith, 29, waitress, Burbank, Calif.; Angie Swindell, 29, pharmaceutical sales representative, Orlando, Fla.; and Libra Thompson, 31, a human resources representative from Spring, Texas.
“Big Brother 10” will air on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. and on Wednesdays and Sundays at 8 p.m., according to its Web site.
For more information about Costa or “Big Brother 10,” visit www.cbs.com/primetime/big_brother.