Photo: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Love Island USA season seven ended months ago, so how are we still getting racial-slur scandals from the cast? Huda Mustafa appeared on her boyfriend’s (Perfect Match’s Louis Russell) Instagram Live, during which people called in. One caller, seemingly a child, called Love Island’s Olandria Carthen the n-word. Both Russell and Mustafa laughed at the comment before expressing confusion. “Woah, hey, hey,” said Russell, while Mustafa said, “Yo, what the fuck, what did they say?” The clip went viral, with all parties involved responding and Huda Beauty dropping Mustafa as a brand partner.
After the IG Live clip circulated, Mustafa quickly addressed it on Stories, calling the situation “click bait.” She wrote that she and Russell didn’t hear what the person said, only the racial slur, and that they hung up immediately. “I don’t condone anything of the sort,” she wrote per TMZ. Mustafa said her laughter came because the moment was “awkward,” but she maintained that “whoever said it is in the wrong.” Mustafa noted whoever was on the other side of the phone had no caller ID. TMZ also reported Russell made a now-deleted Story post saying, as a Black man, he does not condone racism.
The next day, Olandria Carthen responded on her Instagram Stories. As captured by Yahoo! Entertainment, she wrote, “That kind of language is never acceptable. Not in anger, not as a joke, not ever. Words like that carry generations of pain, and pretending otherwise only keeps the cycle going. Defending it, laughing about it, or making excuses is even worse.” Carthen also called those who “participated in the stream” to donate to organizations like “UNCF, NAACP, and/or the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. I will be making a personal donation as well.”
Mustafa apologized directly to Carthen in another Instagram Story. “Olandria — it is now clear that this comment was targeted at you, and I apologize for my immediate reaction,” she wrote. “My reaction in that moment came from being off guard, not from finding the word or the situation funny. It was a nervous, uncomfortable reaction that I recognize was inappropriate.” Mustafa said she would make a donation to the NAACP.
On October 31, Huda Beauty announced it was severing its partnership with Mustafa. “We are truly disappointed by Huda Mustafa’s recent live and we take all forms of racism very seriously,” the brand said in a statement. “While we don’t believe her actions reflect her character, we found them deeply upsetting.” The brand has removed all related content from stores and socials.
This is the third time the cast of Love Island season seven has had a controversy surrounding racial slurs. Yulissa Escobar was ejected from the Villa on Day 2 after fans found podcasts in which she used the N-word. Cierra Ortega used a slur against Asian people in her Instagram Stories while discussing her pre-Villa Botox. Fans demanded she be removed from the show like Escobar, a decision Ortega agreed with. “I am not the victim in this situation,” she said in her “accountability” video, in which she wore a shirt emblazoned with the word empathy.
