{"id":247835,"date":"2025-07-08T11:12:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247835\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T11:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:12:21","slug":"cierra-ortega-exits-love-island-usa-villa-following-backlash-over-resurfaced-racial-slur-posts-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247835\/","title":{"rendered":"Cierra Ortega exits \u2018Love Island USA\u2019 villa following backlash over resurfaced racial slur posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Cierra Ortega, a contestant of\u00a0this summer\u2019s \u201cLove Island USA\u201d<\/a>\u00a0left the villa just a week before the finale of the hit reality series is set to air on Peacock.<\/p>\n

Her departure, announced Sunday, followed weeks of uproar from viewers after old posts from Ortega resurfaced that contained a racial slur against Asian people. The show\u2019s narrator, Iain Stirling, announced Ortega had departed \u201cdue to a personal situation\u201d early in Sunday\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n

Ortega becomes the second contestant this season to depart the show amid controversy due to past social media posts. Yulissa Escobar abruptly exited last month in the second episode after clips of her using racist language resurfaced online. Her departure was also not explained in the show.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the show declined to comment Monday.<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis image released by Peacock shows Cierra Ortega in an episode of “Love Island USA.”(Ben Symons | Ben Symons\/Peacock via AP)<\/p>\n

Ortega\u2019s family posted to her Instagram story Sunday evening following the announcement of her departure, asking the public \u201cfor compassion. For patience. For basic human decency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Cierra is not in the villa anymore, she is still away. She hasn\u2019t had the chance to process any of this or speak for herself,\u201d her family wrote. \u201dBut we know our daughter. We know her heart. And when she returns, we believe she\u2019ll face this with honesty, growth, and grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her family said they, along with Ortega\u2019s friends and online supporters, have received threats, attacks and cruel messages on social media, noting that \u201cno one deserve that kind of hate, no matter what mistakes they\u2019ve made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLove Island USA\u201d is an\u00a0American spin-off of the original U.K. series<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0is airing its seventh season<\/a>. The show airs daily except Wednesdays and brings young singles together in a remote villa in Fiji to explore connections with the ultimate goal of finding love.<\/p>\n

Couples undergo challenges and are encouraged test their romantic connections as new contestants are introduced. Islanders are routinely \u201cdumped\u201d from the villa throughout the series as stronger couples form. The winning couple receives $100,000.<\/p>\n

The show, which strips contestants of their phones or access to the outside world, has previously asked fans to avoid cyberbullying contestants. Host Ariana Madix\u00a0called for fans<\/a>\u00a0to stop doxxing and harassing the show\u2019s stars in a recent interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Ortega entered the villa at the end of the first episode as a bombshell, one of the first in a steady stream of new contestants who come in after the show began, often expected to disrupt existing couples and create new relationship dynamics.<\/p>\n

Ortega quickly coupled up with Nic Vansteenberghe, whom she remained with up until her departure. Her exit broke up one of the few consistent couples of the season. The couple had just announced a few episodes prior they were \u201cclosed off,\u201d a popular \u201cLove Island\u201d phrase to indicate neither contestant was interested in exploring a connection with any other islander.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Cierra had left, my mind was clear. I knew what the future would look like, and now, I\u2019m lost,\u201d Vansteenberghe said during Sunday\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n

Vansteenberghe stayed on the show as a single islander after Ortega left, and he ultimately re-coupled with fellow contestant Olandria Carthen before the end of the episode.<\/p>\n

Belle-A Walker, a contestant who was dumped earlier this season, took to Instagram to express heartbreak over Ortega\u2019s resurfaced posts. Walker, who is Asian American, said she is \u201cdeeply appreciative\u201d of the show\u2019s producers \u201cfor taking a stand and making it clear that racism of any kind is not tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsian hate is oftentimes overlooked and dismissed. But being a first-generation American, I have personally witnessed and experienced how real and hurtful comments like these are,\u201d Walker wrote on her Instagram story page. \u201dIt is my hope that this situation can help shed light on how big of an issue anti-Asian hate really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Cierra Ortega, a contestant of\u00a0this summer\u2019s \u201cLove Island USA\u201d\u00a0left the villa just a week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[95922,95920,33405,383,95923,26364,95921,182,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-247835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-asian-hate","9":"tag-cierra-ortega","10":"tag-fiji","11":"tag-love-island","12":"tag-nic-vansteenberghe","13":"tag-peacock","14":"tag-racial-slur","15":"tag-social-media","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114817318513926875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}