Season 7 of “Love Island” was characterized by dramatic gestures, romantic encounters, and plenty of messy relationships. But what happened outside of the villa’s walls while the show was airing was perhaps even more shocking than all of the scenes combined. Though the islanders thought they were on the show to find the love of their life, fate had a different plan.
Throughout this season, two participants were removed from headquarters and sent on the next plane home for reasons regarding inappropriate speech. Islander Yulissa Escobar was removed in the second episode after a video from a podcast resurfaced and revealed her saying an anti-Black slur. When fans of “Love Island” had found the video, they wasted no time sending it to the producers on set.
However, to much surprise of the viewers, this would not be a lone incident this season. Cierra Ortega had made it far into the show, to the point where she had already made it official with Nic Vansteenberghe. But their relationship status did nothing to stop the producers from removing Ortega immediately off the premises after several videos of her were also revealed on the internet saying an anti-Asian slur.
After leaving “Love Island,” Ortega’s situation started becoming more extreme as haters began to infiltrate her social media feed. Though she began to silence her comment section on videos and tried to disappear from her socials, nothing stopped the wave of hate from crashing down. Tensions were raised so high that an anonymous fan sent Immigrants and Customs Enforcement to her home address to allegedly try and get her family deported.
Once two Islanders had been removed from the villa, all of the participants’ social media platforms started to quickly gather national attention. Fans began to notice a trend in the casting of the members this season. It seemed as though the producers decided to go a different route on how they went about choosing the bombshells that would enter the villa. Mostly every islander was an influencer, already knowing each other and having worked together in some form before arriving. Almost none of them seemed to truly be looking for love, and though it made for good TV, it unfortunately did not result in very strong couples.
One of these weaker couples, Huda Mustafa and Jeremiah Brown, crashed and burned terribly on national TV, but it was nothing compared to how Mustafa was singled out and scorched online. Mustafa was arguably one of the biggest stars on the show, bringing immense drama and intensity to every relationship she was involved in. This did not reflect well on her character and made her living situation even more precarious as she is a mother of a 4-year-old girl. Fans called Child Protection Services on her because they felt that she was an unfit mother. Even though that personal part of her life should have remained untouched by onlookers, the fans never seemed to hold back.
Quickly after all of the islanders left the villa, it seemed as if the guys went off and had a field day. Pepe Garcia, one of the most beloved members on the island, cheated on Iris Kendall about three weeks after the show ended. One of his friends and the male winner of this season, Bryan Arenales also cheated on Amaya Espinal, who was arguably the most loved character out of all of the islanders.
As a whole, the fans are what really dominated this season, especially when it came to attacking the islanders. All of the hate became so intense that the official Love Island Instagram made a post saying “please just remember they’re real people, so let’s be kind and spread the love!” This has never really been necessary before, which demonstrates how detrimental some of the fans’ comments must have been. Though the participants of Love Island were expected to put on a good show and find a potential love interest, this season challenged the boundaries set both in and out of the villa and demonstrated the dangers of a life in the spotlight.
