Last year, Season 6 of Love Island USA was, in host Ariana Madix’s words, a real “lightning in a bottle” moment, breathing new life into the franchise, attracting a boatload of fans, and anointing new fan favorites (plus a spinoff). New and returning fans alike boarded the boat to Fiji for Season 7—but they didn’t quite get the delights of last year’s true love, girl power, and snake charmers who would read girls to filth and then go cry about it in the pool. Instead, the most recent season of Love Island USA has felt more like a season of Survivor: Strategic alliances and ruthless eliminations have dominated the proceedings instead of declarations of love (or at least lust) and juicy makeout sessions. On top of all that, this season has also prominently featured good girls gone mean, contestants’ racist comments coming back to haunt them, Huda’s dramatics, and some truly cursed tattoos.
Every season of Love Island is manufactured for maximum chaos, but where the light of love usually manages to shine through, this summer in the villa is just cursed all around. Perhaps no season could ever live up to the expectations set last summer; perhaps last season’s success simply attracted this year’s cast of supercharged schemers and clout chasers. Whatever the reason, this season has been defined by diabolical dumpings and islanders who don’t seem to give a shit about anything but their Instagram followings (which are, for some of them, shrinking by the day). All we have is sweet Amaya Papaya to guide us through the chaos, our angel in a muumuu.
Yet, obviously, we can’t stop watching, out of hope that the tendrils of love can sneak through or that these scheming islanders will finally get their comeuppance. (Or maybe it’s just truly impossible to peel your eyes away from such a fiery car crash.) Because, after all, a cursed season of Love Island USA is still a season worth watching. To celebrate the culmination of everyone’s favorite hate watch, here’s a ranking of all the most cursed moments from this glorious train wreck of a season.
55. The Islanders’ Old Social Media Posts (Innocent Edition)
This cast of Love Island USA stars is undeniably a part of the TikTok generation, and they have the digital footprints to show for it. While old social media posts have gotten some of the islanders in trouble, for most, they’re just an embarrassing showcase of puberty and dated trends. We’ve been able to watch Nic grow up (and torment his mom) and Ace accrue his following of Pakistani dance acolytes, and we’ve confirmed that Amaya has always been a cutie-pie who stands on business. These posts may not seem all that cursed, but at the same time, you have to feel a little bad for these wannabe influencers, who will never outrun the digital footprints they created when they were 14.
As a Summer House obsessive, I looked forward to Paige’s appearance on Love Island USA with hope and some trepidation. (Would the islanders even know who the reality TV veteran is? Turns out, not really.) But unfortunately for Paige, a noted Love Island obsessive, she disappeared midway through the lumberjack challenge she was hosting, victim to a brown suede dress that turned into an oven in the hot Fijian sun. Luckily, her only role was holding a basket of beavers, so her absence didn’t make much of an impact.
The premiere’s opening sequence is the islanders’ first chance to make an impression by, say, throwing a foam party at a car wash or swinging a suitcase around for no goddamn reason. Alas, all introductions are not created equal.
I do not know what the show was trying to say about Bella-A by forcing her to dance around in a container ship—but I do know that I was not surprised that she was the first islander (besides Yulissa—more on that below) to get sent packing.
“Bella” is a totally reasonable nickname to take from “Isabelle-Anne.” Stylizing it like this, on the other hand, is preposterous. But maybe Belledasha knew what she was doing all along; her portmanteau kept her in the meme cycle long after she got eliminated.
This one might have originated with Season 6’s beloved Leah, but this season, the islanders can’t stop saying “This is crazy” about the least crazy things imaginable. Belle-A got the ball rolling by saying Nic and Cierra’s Hideaway kiss was “crazy.” (You know what’s not crazy, Belle-A? Kissing on Love Island!) And just like her forebear Leah, she described Soul Ties, honestly a pretty normal hangout spot, as crazy. From there, the bug spread.
Maybe, after spending weeks cloistered in a neon-dappled house, things like s’mores and—I don’t know—words really do seem crazy?
Can’t I have my Love Island USA free from needling reminders of capitalism’s creep? No? Guess I’ll buy myself some Megan Thee Stallion swimsuits then. (Only at Walmart!)
I think there have been two scenes shot there, not counting JaNa and Serena’s villa tour on Aftersun. What a waste of resources! Is the humidity bad for the cameras and/or mics? I would be sauna-ing it up at all hours.
I’m sorry if they’re your vibe. I hate ’em!
It’s a great show, and Nic should definitely watch it instead of acting like he knows who Aang is
Be grateful these are just photos, mere moments in what felt like an eternity of arrhythmic, assless twerking.
Early on in the season, one cursed pimple took up residency on Nic’s cheek, an unwelcome hanger-on during his chats with Belle-A and Cierra. A few episodes later, we saw that his supposed best friend, Taylor, had pimple patches with him the whole time. A friend in need is a friend indeed; next time Nic gets a zit, he should keep that in mind.
Listen, I don’t want to criticize anyone for the way they talk. But when Zak threw Amaya under the bus during the standing on business challenge, all bets were off. The man is incomprehensible, and Amaya was right to call him an odd individual.
43. Every Time a Cast-Off Makes an Appearance at a Love Island USA Watch Party or on The Viall Files
Much as I enjoyed watching Jeremiah learn that everyone in America hates Ace and Co. as much as he does, it still bums me out to see the Love Island USA rejects on a Zoom call from an anonymous Fiji hotel room instead of in Soul Ties where they belong. Seeing sweet Hannah do meet and greets at a pickleball court just feels like a violation.
42. “What the Helly?” (Or the Islanders’ Ignorance Regarding the NBA Finals)
If this season has a catchphrase other than repeatedly calling normal things “crazy,” it’s got to be “What the helly?,” which the islanders repeat when any twist comes their way.
Of course, “What the helly?” is famously a prelude to “What the helly ’Burton?,” and it’s only fair to assume that the islanders (some of whom are pro basketball players!) are dying to know what happened with the NBA Finals (the season premiered on June 3, two days before the Finals started). News of Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton’s unfortunate Game 7 injury—as well as plenty of other bad tidings about the state of the world—awaits them on the other side of the villa. They’re gonna say “What the helly?” so many times.
Ariana, baby, we know your dating history. Don’t tell the contestants you like pretty men, too, because they know, and we know, that that isn’t true. It’s Episode 1, and you’re already losing all credibility.
This is one cursed Love Island USA moment that was really just a curse for the person doing it. Belle-A, what are you doing, loca? This isn’t Chastity Island! It’s time for some tongue wrestling!
Maybe it wasn’t the most strategic move for Belle-A to offer cheek kisses and nothing more to her potential lovers. But I do respect her for standing by her principles and not bending the game to her will by throwing out kisses like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. However, there is a way to win this game, and it does not involve restraint. As soon as new bombshell Cierra kissed Belle-A’s partner Nic, I knew Belle-A’s days were numbered. And when Amaya made out with Zak in her desperate bid to couple up in Casa Amor, I knew that kissing holdout Olandria wasn’t gonna keep him around much longer. Maybe the cursed part here is just how easily men can be turned by a makeout session.
Am I just too easily offended by pilling? (If you’re like me, this thing’s great, by the way.) Or do the camerapeople have a grudge against the set designers? These nasty pilled pillows were in the Hideaway, site of illicit hookups galore, so I can only imagine what else hasn’t been cleaned up in there.
This cursed ensemble isn’t unique to Season 7—it’s basically the Love Island uniform—but Casa Amor bombshell Jaden took it to a new level when she wore her heels into the pool. I get nervous every time the girls strut perilously through the villa, one misplaced piece of Astroturf away from a major tumble, so I damn near had a heart attack when Jaden kept her heels on in a body of water.
Has no one heard of sandals on this show?
Taylor says he’s into Clarke because she makes him feel like a little kid, unlike his first partner in the villa, the more uptight Olandria. Apparently, Taylor was an incredibly boring kid, though, because he and Clarke seem like a couple who’ve lived together for eight years and are figuring out what to make for dinner.
35. Doppelgängers Nic and Elan
When Olandria came back to the villa from Casa Amor, she had plenty of tea to spill about the new bombshells who’d been keeping the ladies entertained. Most interesting to Nic was Elan, who’d coupled up with his partner Cierra and, per Olandria, also looked a whole lot like Nic.
Even though Cierra chose Nic over Elan when they were all back in the villa, that didn’t stop Nic from trying to steal his competition’s rizz, making c-shaped pancakes for Cierra just like Elan did (more on that below) and slicking back his curls in imitation of his fellow moptop.
Shouldn’t they just … kiss already
Huda’s cursed one-liners this season have been as uncountable as grains of sand in the sea (and can mostly be summed up by one eternal phrase: “you fucking bitch”). But this one, uttered after she shook her ass in Ace’s face during the heart rate challenge, really stuck with me. Chelley took offense when Huda unleashed her bag of ass tricks on her man, even if it was in the context of a challenge, where, usually, anything goes. Huda cast about for an explanation for Chelley’s rage or some measure of forgiveness, turning to Olandria, Amaya, and Chris to tell her why what she did was so bad. Seemingly out of ideas, she asked Chris, “If I was ugly, would it make it better?”—that is, would Chelley be more willing to forgive Huda if she simply weren’t so hot? You get the sense that Huda would be willing to make herself ugly to earn Chelley’s forgiveness and get back her place in the villa’s girl group. But, alas, that is an impossible task. Huda is not ugly, and her ass has true power over anyone who gazes upon it.
Like Amaya, I, too, would have preferred chicken to the “Who’s got beef?” challenge, which involved very little beef and altogether too much projectile spitting of dairy products. As part of the challenge, couples had to waterfall milk into each other’s mouths and then, naturally, make out. (Yum!) The challenge might have been right up Hannah’s alley (see below), but everyone else was probably lactose intolerant and definitely smelling like spoiled milk by the time all was said and spit.
First, Hannah spit down Charlie’s jugular in the leather and lace challenge. Then she spit on her hand to, uh, get things lubricated in bed with Pepe.
For a future doctor, Hannah has some suspect hygiene practices.
Everyone on Love Island USA has a job that’s theoretical at best—they can’t all just say they’re influencers-slash-models—but “day trader” is perhaps the most nebulous of all (perhaps even more than “peer mentor” or “nurse”). Chelley, like JaNa in Season 6, is this season’s representative day trader, and the definition of the job grows hazier with every passing day. In the Love Island world, is “day-trading” just code for “reinvesting the money you get from being an influencer”? Whatever it really means, we can all agree that what it implies is “Sure, I’m a model, but I’m also smart.”
Would you trust Nic and Amaya to give you a shot in the arm or perform CPR on your loved ones? Sure, Amaya’s got some of the lingo down pat, but Nic seems to spend more of his time modeling scrubs than wearing them in a medical setting.
29. Ace’s Dates as Grand Theater
Before their last week in the villa, did Ace and Chelley ever have a conversation about, you know, their jobs, their friends, their pets, their families, or anything relating to their actual lives? No. But they did have a series of elaborate, dubiously romantic dates in the villa: Ping-Pong and pancakes, hibachi-style breakfast, and yoga lessons taught by Nic, who doesn’t seem like he’s done yoga once in his life. All the pageantry just seemed like it was supposed to make America vote for Ace as “best boyfriend material.” Did that work? No. Did it win Chelley over, even though the dates were much more about Ace’s creativity (and potential as a future Love Island producer) than about her? I guess so.
To be fair, we don’t know for sure that Taylor’s toe is dying—he just said it’s turning black.
To be fair, Olandria might be the primary culprit here. But even Love Island veterans (and Aftersun cohosts) Cely and Callum acknowledged that the tongues are getting a little too much action this season.
It’s locking lips, not licking lips, people.
It’s no surprise that internet commentators have called for a 24/7 livestream of the villa, in the style of Big Brother or The Truman Show. Goddamn it, we want to know what Huda and Jeremiah kept giggling about in between all their fights, and we want the uncut footage of Huda’s heart rate challenge dance with Ace! We have heard bits and pieces about what went on in the unseen footage from the island’s cast-offs; for example, Hannah has said that, again and again, she was the only one to comfort Huda during her histrionics, making Huda’s decision to vote her off the island even shadier. But it feels impossible to craft fully formed opinions of the islanders without access to all the footage that’s left on the cutting-room floor. And it’s hard not to feel manipulated by those editing decisions. Love Island USA fans have proved that we’ll tune in five days a week (six, if you’re a real zealot) to watch our favorite show. I think it’s time to give us the live feed.
24. Austin’s Body Count
How did the villa’s resident shaman have sex with this many people? And maybe more pressingly, how did he ever find the energy to stop looking for lizards and sleep with four people in one day?
23. Olandria’s Loose Lips
Despite being voted the most trustworthy of the girls in the “hate to burst your bubble” challenge, Olandria has spilled multiple secrets this season: She told Cierra about Nic and Belle-A’s kiss in Soul Ties; talked about Huda’s daughter in front of Austin, who wasn’t one of the privileged few entrusted with that knowledge; and revealed Huda and Chris’s Speakeasy kiss to the whole villa. This girl is not to be trusted!
22. Austin’s Face When He Was Watching Huda and Jeremiah in the Leather and Lace Challenge
I do not understand why the producers don’t let the islanders wash off the milk, dried ketchup, and unidentifiable goo immediately after challenges. No wonder there’s a bug problem in the villa!
A new addition to the villa this year, the photo booth seemed like it would be a great place to make some romantic memories or indulge in a secret crying jag. What it’s turned into is a tool for manipulation and the place where love and friendship go to die. Not one good thing has come out of that photo booth: We’ve just gotten Nic and Cierra’s relationship-ending makeout session, Olandria’s desperate thirst traps, and that photo strip Hannah put on her pillow and soaked with her tears. It’s the last stop on the farewell tour for every islander who gets eliminated, where they have to make goofy faces with their betrayers and former lovers as their 30-minute countdown to pack it up ticks away. There is no question that this is rapidly becoming the most cursed site in the villa, haunted by the ghosts of islanders who’ve passed to the outside.
Nic seems like a chill bro. He’s the jokester of the villa, he originated the indelible “Mamacita?” memes, his relationship with Cierra was mostly unproblematic, and it seems like he really just wants to chill with his dudes and jump on beds. But underneath his charms, he’s a two-faced friend to his supposed besties. While Ace may have been the manager of the Break Up Jeremiah and Huda Department, Nic was an able employee, consistently undermining their relationship (which, to be fair, did need some undermining) while making it seem like he was on their side all along.
Our first sign of trouble between bros was when Nic told his day-one bestie Jeremiah that “it just seems a bit fraudulent the way she’s going about this experience,” in reference to Huda’s too serious, too fast pursuit of Jeremiah. When Jeremiah got upset and went to sulk in a lounge chair, Huda asked Nic what had gotten him so deep in his feelings; Nic just told her, fraudulently, “I don’t see why he would be mad at you.” Later on, Nic told Jeremiah to keep his distance from Huda, but then he scolded him for failing to comfort her when America’s vote split them up. Nic criticized Huda behind her back, and then he reprimanded the other islanders for doing the exact same thing. And after the power trio of Nic, Ace, and Taylor voted to get Jeremiah out of the villa, Jeremiah said he was most betrayed by Nic, whom he’d felt the closest to among the islanders. I love some shady behavior on Love Island, but come on, Nic—stand 10 toes down on something for once!
18. Nic and Cierra Having Sex in the Communal Bedroom
My heart goes out to the islanders who had to listen to this. And no, I never want to hear the word “waterfall” used as an analogy for someone’s exhibitionist journey.
It’s sweet Amaya who’s usually guilty of this, screaming in horror every time another islander has to leave the villa. Shows of emotion are great on Love Island, but for your own sake, Amaya, just remember that no one is actually dying and that you’ll all be making TikToks together in a few short weeks.
Throughout Season 7, Love Island USA viewers have looked on helplessly as our votes have led to the dumping of Charlie, then Hannah and Jeremiah, and then a whole mess of Casa Amor innocents. You see, like any good American at the polls on Election Day, Love Island USA voters only have so much power; you can vote for your favorite islander only to realize everyone else voted for someone you know is a total villain. Or you can vote for your favorite contestant, only to watch as the islanders send your second favorite home. This sure doesn’t feel like a democracy!
And this season, America and the islanders were clearly working at cross-purposes. You know why we all, basically unanimously, paired Iris with Jeremiah in the recoupling? Not because we wanted to see Huda—Jeremiah’s erstwhile partner and hickey giver—stick around! You know why so many of us voted for Iris as our favorite islander a few weeks later? Not because we wanted to see TJ, the boy she was coupled up with, go straight home! The islanders are constantly guessing about what America really thinks of them, but based on what they’re doing with our votes, they’re as unaware of our wants and needs as our actual lawmakers apparently are.
15. Voting Hannah off the Island While Wearing Her Dress
The islanders often share clothes, and it’s a fun little Easter egg when Chelley shows up in Cierra’s bikini or Huda wears Cierra’s little lime-green fit (Cierra’s clothes were in heavy rotation this season, it seems). But the heartwarming closet swaps took a dark turn when Cierra happened to be wearing Hannah’s dress on the night the girls chose to kick Hannah out of the villa. Granted, they had to choose someone. But historically, the islanders haven’t opted to break up a strong couple like Hannah and Pepe, and even grade-A schemer Ace was surprised by the choice. This was our first sign that the “girls’ girl” foursome of Chelley, Olandria, Cierra, and Huda was perhaps just a facade. Friends don’t borrow their friends’ clothes and then hit them with a dump truck.
(Don’t worry—Hannah got her dress back, but not, unfortunately, by forcing Cierra to take it off and hand it over the night of her dumping; it was mailed back to her in Tucson, and I doubt Cierra included an apology note in the package.)
When Cierra found out that her partner, Nic, had kissed her friend Olandria, she insisted she didn’t “feel any kind of way” about it. But then she brought that tale to Iris, who finally talked some sense into her. Iris called Cierra out for acting like a ~cool girl~ and said, you know, it’s actually OK if you’re annoyed that someone you had sex with is making out with your friend.
Before the fallout from her Instagram posts and departure from the villa (more on that later), Cierra had seemed like the villa’s resident cool girl, dressing like J.Lo in 2003, chatting up guys about Avatar: The Last Airbender, and brushing off Nic’s dalliances with a smirk and a tug of her curls. But as time went on, her persona seemed less cool than calculated, as if Cierra were building friendships and keeping her just-OK relationship alive solely to stick around to the finale and gain new fans and followers.
But as the season went on, fellow islanders Huda and Amaya gained fans by not being cool and instead proudly wearing their hearts on their sleeves, boys or follower counts be damned. This is Love Island USA, and if you’re not crashing out by Week 3, either you’re getting too much sleep (which, uh, we know is not the case for Cierra) or you just don’t care enough.
13. The Toxic Cycle of Hating an Islander and Then Celebrating Them as a Feminist Icon (or Vice Versa)
Like Anne Hathaway, this year’s islanders have been subject to the fickle, merciless winds of public opinion. (Unlike Anne Hathaway, they fortunately have no idea what anyone thinks of them at any given time.) Huda started out as this season’s no. 1 villain; she called Jeremiah a “pussy-ass bitch” who cooks raw pancakes and uses people as “escape goats.” The internet accordingly tore her apart, accusing her of being abusive and unstable and turning her crash-out into a series of increasingly creative memes. But by season’s end, Hurricane Huda had gone gentle, and (some of) her critics had become fans, praising her for standing her ground with Chelley, being one of the only true friends to the Casa Amor girls, finding a new connection with international basketball player Chris, and, perhaps most of all, inspiring all of America with her gravity-defying twerking abilities. Huda’s everyone’s mamacita now, and the calls to remove her from the villa have turned into demands to give her the first-place prize.
Alas, the hate train can also go in reverse. Chelley, Cierra, and Olandria all began as fan favorites, but the three—and Cierra in particular—fell from grace as they had crash-outs of their own, betrayed the trust of fellow islanders, or just came across as calculating and there for the wrong reasons. If this season has taught us anything, it’s that it may be best to get the drama out of your system early on so you can set yourself on a redemption arc for the rest of the season.
It’s also worth noting that this trajectory almost exclusively applies to the women on the show. As polarizing as someone like Ace might be, and as much hate as Taylor got after recoupling with Clarke, the dudes don’t receive nearly the same kind of whiplash treatment that the girls do.
At this point, tattoos are to Love Island boys what lip filler and eyelash extensions are to Love Island girls: the price of admission to the villa. But this season brought a truly unprecedented crop of cursed tattoos. Ace had his own name inscribed across his back, plus a baby and a lion facing off across his pecs. Pepe’s arm was tattooed with Heath Ledger as the Joker taking off a clown mask (just to reveal he’s still a clown underneath it all). And worst of all, there was the girl drinking boba (?) on Austin’s abdomen and the dueling cherubs on his chest (one of the cherubs is pointing a gun at the other one, which maybe represents his mom?). As for boba girl, well, it turns out she’s … Black? And apparently proof that Austin’s not racist? The mysteries continue unabated.
I can’t speak much on JD or Zac with a c (we barely knew you, boys!), but Chris, Bryan, Elan, and even Zak with a k proved in their short time in the villa that they would have made for a far superior starting rotation of guys than what we got. The OG crew of guys had always seemed more interested in infighting and making up elaborate handshakes than actually finding love. Maybe the producers will pull a Rob and bring some of these guys back for a second chance as a main cast member—although Chris and Bryan defied the Casa odds and stuck around to the bitter end, proving their worth as woulda-, coulda-, shoulda-been OGs.
From the beginning, it seemed like Ace had definite ideas about how the Love Island game should be played. Make strategic alliances, don’t commit to any coupling too soon, neg the girls to get them to like you, and establish the rules of the game before anyone else can. He turned the house against Huda and Jeremiah and ultimately caused Jeremiah to get voted off the island out of the villa. He formed a makeshift tribe around him, gathering Nic, Taylor, and Chelley to his cause. He’s used some pretty successful political tactics to silence his haters. He’s said, repeatedly, “I don’t lose.” But his worse-than-expected outcomes in the Love Island USA voter polls could mean that his machinations were for naught; maybe he should have thought more carefully about what reality show he applied to!
On paper, it seemed like bombshell Jalen was everything Olandria could have wanted: a sweet, attentive country boy who didn’t come on too strong but still actually liked her (unlike Taylor, whom she clung to for most of the season despite his pretty obvious disinterest). That was why America paired Jalen and Olandria up, and it was why we all mourned as one when she went right back to deadbeat Taylor three days later. Jalen was summarily dumped from the villa (instead of Huda!), and then we learned that he’d literally gotten his passport to be on this show, and it was his first time ever leaving the country. The Love Island USA hive did what it could to make it up to him, exploding his follower count and coaching him on how to become a proper influencer. Jalen will have plenty more travel and love in his future, if his 1.7 million fans have anything to say about it.
This season, pancakes were the breakfast du jour of the villa. Some let the pancakes inspire them and flexed their creativity in the kitchen: Ace had his pancakes and Ping-Pong date with Chelley, and Pepe went wild and turned his pancakes into crepes. Others did not master the pancakes but let the pancakes master them.
Our first, and most iconic, sign of trouble in pancake paradise came when Jeremiah served Huda undercooked pancakes—with no protein on the side. The raw pancakes rapidly became a symbol of something bigger: Jeremiah’s lack of effort, Huda’s steadily growing conviction that she cared about him more than he cared about her, and perhaps even his inability to take care of her and her child. Instead of choking down the raw pancakes or just throwing them away so Jeremiah wouldn’t notice, Huda chose a path of violence, making Taylor cook her a new batch of pancakes and asking Jeremiah how he could have ever disrespected her by serving her raw food. Online, the pancakes became a litmus test: Is it acceptable to serve your partner undercooked pancakes? Or is Jeremiah just doing his best? (As someone who has made some raw pancakes in her day, I have sympathy for Jeremiah in this situation. Those pancakes sure looked cooked from the outside, and he’s, what, 25? He’ll learn!)
Huda got wrapped up in even more pancake drama when her new partner, Chris, made them for both her and Chelley—but Chelley got more pancakes than Huda, plus a flower (if this sounds like a kindergarten-level fight, that’s because it basically was). This time, though, things were settled more peaceably. Chris admitted that he should have given Huda and Chelley an equal number of pancakes and apologized (!) to Huda. Find yourself a man who acknowledges pancake-related concerns, I guess!
Yet this was not the end of the pancake-centric drama. Back in Casa Amor, Elan had made Cierra pancakes in the shape of a c, her first initial. When the islanders came back to the villa to recouple, Cierra chose Nic over Elan. But when Nic wrote her name down for the recoupling, he spelled it … Sierra. Afterward, Cierra pointedly told him about Elan’s c-shaped pancakes. So what did he do the next day? Copy Elan’s move. But Elan was also still pursuing Cierra with a c, and he’d already made his own c-shaped pancakes for her. It wouldn’t take a Huda to tell you which looked more appetizing:
Loyalty may not seem so cursed. But more than almost anything else on this list, loyalty has been the dark cloud hanging over this season, making sure connections go unexplored and keeping certain islanders around the villa even though they should have been escorted out by the G-Wagon a long time ago. Loyalty is what kept Olandria going back to Taylor again and again, even when it was abundantly clear that he just wasn’t that into her (and even when he chose someone else over her). Before Cierra left the show, it kept Nicolandria from seeing the light of day, as both Nic and Olandria wouldn’t ignore their loyalty to their tepid partnerships to really explore each other. Gender loyalty, meanwhile, meant that the girls all voted to keep Huda twice, even though they were talking shit behind her back and even though some of them might have been afraid of her. Loyalty meant that most of the Casa Amor guys and girls never stood a chance in the villa, even though some of the Casa couples—like Elan and Cierra or Chris and Chelley—might have made a lot more sense than the original ones.
The problem this season, though, wasn’t really the islanders’ loyalty—it was that they sometimes seemed to act out of loyalty just as a way of getting ahead, whether to prove they were real girls’ girls or to stick with their original partner all the way to that $100,000 prize. I’m all for loyalty in the real world! But you’ve known these people for eight days, and they don’t deserve your allegiance. If Ace made any good points this season, it was that this is Love Island, you weirdos, and if you’re not in a brand-new couple or you haven’t fucked over a friend or two by the end of your stay, you’re doing it wrong.
6. Yulissa’s Crimes and Swift Removal
Love Island USA is somehow repeating the now age-old mistakes of The Bachelor and many other reality shows. The show needs to hire Reddit sleuths to do background checks on the cast before they bring them all the way out to Fiji, because they do a much better job of digging up the islanders’ dirt than production does. Before the first episode had even aired, clips of Yulissa using a racial slur were all over the internet, and fans were irate that the casting team hadn’t already combed through every trace of her online footprint to find them. Yulissa was out of the villa by Episode 2, her departure mentioned in a check-Instagram-and-you’ll-miss-it announcement from Iain Stirling (“Yulissa has left the villa,” he muttered and then moved things right along). She was barely mentioned again in the villa, although that didn’t stop TikTok from imagining her late-night removal by producers—or keep Yulissa away from Love Island USA watch parties in Miami.
5. All the Men Who Couldn’t Handle Amaya Papaya
“Sometimes I’m not the book someone should be reading, and that’s OK.”
“I’m just not your cup of tea to be drinking, so don’t fucking drink it.”
“I know my worth, plus the tax. I don’t beg no man to see my value.”
These are just a few of the choice words Amaya Papaya, Love Island USA’s resident poet, had for all the men who ever questioned how much she cries and uses the word “babe.” In the standing on business challenge, one islander called her out for all those crying jags, and Ace, Austin, and Zak (all of whom she’d been coupled up with at some point) piled on; in that moment, any woman who’s ever been told she’s too much cried along with sweet Amaya, who’d giggled and tripped and sobbed her way through most of this season without finding a man who deserved her.
But the audience, at least, fell in love with Amaya’s way with words and irrepressible spirit—and when America voted her as the most genuine and trustworthy of the girls in the villa, it seemed that some of the boys began to sense that she could be their ticket to the finale. Elan, Bryan, and Zak came crawling to Amaya to carry them to the top, but our wise soul made the right choice we knew she would, coupling up with Bryan—who’d been the only person to stand up for her when she got dragged during the standing on business challenge. There’s a reason she’s America’s favorite daughter!
4. Are Ace and Chelley a Couple IRL???
From the premiere, it was established that Ace and Chelley knew each other before the villa. (Ace had hit on her outside a club in New York; you can always count on him to bring the charm.) But some internet detectives have hypothesized that their connection goes deeper than that, pointing to a video in which Ace asks his dancing acolytes to wish someone named Chelley (Shelly? Jelly?) a happy Valentine’s Day. This could have just been part of the online flirtation they’d already admitted to. Or it could have been a sign that they were a couple before the show who came into the villa together to win it all.
Some other signs of their possible connection: Ace told the other girls (most notably Amaya) that he didn’t want to be touched, called “babe,” or kissed outside of a challenge. He chose Amaya in a recoupling but immediately made it clear that he was actually interested in Chelley all along. And, perhaps most damningly of all, Chelley chose Ace over Chris, who named a flower after her, asked her what he could do for her if she was ever burned out, and is 6-foot-7. But when they got back to the villa after Casa Amor, Chelley basically ghosted Chris while insisting that she was still “exploring her connection” with him.
It’s all a little sus, and it may very well be the reason Chelley and Ace were downvoted in the “most trustworthy” voter polls. If it was all a plot, by Sunday, we’ll know whether it worked out for them.
For most of this season, the islanders seemed to truly view their experience as a contest. Nearly every time they had a chance to send someone home, they broke up a promising relationship rather than dumping someone who didn’t have a connection at all—a complete reversal of the approach in seasons past. First came Charlie, who had just shared a sweet moment of recommitment with Hannah. Next came Hannah, who’d successfully bounced back with Pepe and, per Cierra, got dumped because she’d had the chance to explore multiple connections successfully. (Huh? Isn’t that the … point of Love Island?) Later on, the islanders voted to keep Taylor (who, to be fair, did have something going on with Clarke) rather than TJ, even though some of them were closer friends with TJ’s partner, Iris, than the islanders they voted for.
It all comes off as tactical more than sensible; almost every time, the islanders put the strongest couples on the chopping block. Without their knowledge, though, they may have actually been working against themselves: With each couple they broke up, they lost favor among voters, who will ultimately be the ones to decide Love Island USA’s winners. All their machinations just meant that there was only one pre–Casa Amor couple (Ace and Chelley) still in contention by the last week, and a whole mess of voters determined to see them lose.
At the beginning of her Love Island journey, Cierra’s Instagram (run by a friend while she was in the villa) was celebrated for its loving odes to its absent owner. Cosmopolitan even profiled the person behind it, and Cierra’s follower count grew steadily in the first few weeks. But then it came out that Cierra had used a racist slur on Instagram, and there was a swift reversal in her Instagram account’s fortunes (not to mention Cierra’s). Cierra’s friend turned off the comments, her followers left as quickly as they came, and fans took to other social media platforms to call for her to be taken off the show, just like Yulissa.
And in the last week of the season, Cierra disappeared “due to a personal situation.” Viewers could only assume that it was a situation closely resembling Yulissa’s—and just like when Yulissa was whisked away, there was very little discussion among the cast about Cierra’s removal. Perhaps production assumed, rightly, that many fans would already know why Cierra was leaving, and perhaps they didn’t want to contribute to the bullying that had already been spreading online. But leaving the departure of a onetime fan favorite to one vague sentence leaves you wanting just a bit more from the Love Island USA team. Even a basic statement that racism isn’t acceptable would be better than nothing. (After leaving the villa, Cierra did issue an apology via Instagram, adding that some fans had called ICE on her family in retaliation for her original post. Zero winners here!)
1. Huda and Jeremiah’s Journey
Could these rankings have ended anywhere else? So many other cursed vibes and moments stemmed from this one, the original sin of Season 7. If the doomed Huda and Jeremiah hadn’t coupled up so quickly and closed off so completely, would Ace have turned into such a schemer? Would Huda have embarked on the redemption journey that unseated Chelley, Olandria, and Cierra as fan favorites? Would Love Island USA Season 7 have become a talking point at every bar and party you walked into over the past few weeks and earned higher ratings than any previous season of the franchise?
From the moment Jeremiah, who’d already been paired up with Huda, refused to kiss anyone besides her on night one, we knew something toxic was brewing between the two. In their first week in the villa, Huda and Jeremiah each seemed convinced that they’d found the one, closing off their relationship and stirring resentment among those who were “doing things the right way.” Huda fended off bombshells from Jeremiah in a jealous rage, and Jeremiah pondered his new future as a stepdad. But as time went on, bickering replaced sweet nothings: Huda asked why Jeremiah wasn’t planning elaborate, Ace-style dates for her, and Jeremiah wondered why someone he’d known for a week was asking him to share his location with her outside the villa. The other islanders commented about Jeremiah’s love bombing (questionable) and Huda’s fits of jealousy and waited for when it would all blow up.
And then America stepped in. With our semidivine power (the Love Island USA app on our phones), we split the lovers apart and paired Jeremiah with new bombshell Iris. He wasn’t into her, but what was more important to us was that we weren’t into Huda and Jeremiah. They’d settled down too quickly and were giving “that toxic, obsessive couple you knew in high school” vibes more than “mom and dad” vibes. And then the worst happened, in Huda’s mind, at least: Jeremiah didn’t comfort her after the recoupling, and he insisted on sleeping in the same bed as his new partner. While Jeremiah ignored her, Huda communed with her inner demons and pitted America’s will against God’s.
The next day, Jeremiah and Iris, along with the other new couples, were whisked away for a romantic date—indeed, Huda’s dream date.
From there, their relationship devolved into name-calling, a one-sided screaming match across the villa, multiple attempts to make up that ended in tears and recriminations, and their final breakup, when Jeremiah chose Iris over Huda once and for all.
Instead of eliminating Huda the night of the recoupling, the islanders chose to keep her around, setting her on a path of redemption that started with her truly inspiring twerking for Megan Thee Stallion. She explored her options like a good Love Islander should, and she actually listened to the other islanders’ advice and kept her distance from Jeremiah—until, of course, he bore the punishment for both their sins and got sent home by the boys. We watched her grow (as much as one can grow on Love Island), keeping her cool when Casa Amor bombshell JD accused her of being too dominant and practicing her conflict resolution skills when she butted heads with the other girls in the villa. And when some of her nitpicky tendencies resurfaced with new partner Chris, he handled it better than Jeremiah had, asking Huda directly what he did wrong and could do better (he could have offered her some constructive criticism, too, but baby steps, I guess).
Huda’s fall from grace and swift, Megan Thee Stallion–assisted ascent back to the mountaintop capture this cursed but nonetheless compulsively watchable season of Love Island USA. We came here for love, stayed for the crash-outs, and prayed for moments like these. Cursed and loveless as Season 7 has been, this is still Love Island USA, and even though we can’t stop talking about how bad the vibes are, we’ll always tune in for the drama, conniving, and (fake?) love, every day except hump day.
Helena Hunt
Helena Hunt is a copy editor for The Ringer who loves TV and sometimes writes about it. She lives in San Diego, but no, she doesn’t surf.
