'Love Island USA' prepares to crown winning couple following tumultuous seventh season

San Francisco Chronicle​

20 hours ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — 'Love Island USA' will crown the winning couple of its seventh season Sunday evening, culminating a tumultuous summer full of explosive breakups and shock exits.
The finale will air on Peacock at 6 p.m. Pacific/9 p.m. Eastern, following a chart-topping run since the season premiered on June 3. The show brings young singles together in a remote villa in Fiji to explore connections with the ultimate goal of finding love.
The show, an American spinoff to the UK series, has shaken up reality TV, becoming Peacock's most watched entertainment series on mobile devices, according to NBC Universal.
This season follows breakout success from last summer, which captured mainstream attention. 'Love Island: Beyond the Villa,' a new series spinoff premiering Sunday, follows Season 6's main cast as they navigate relationships, life and newfound social media fame in Los Angeles.
This season has also been under fire as two contestants – Cierra Ortega and Yulissa Escobar – left the villa following resurfaced posts in which they used racial slurs.
Ortega, who was half of one of the season's strongest couples, left the villa just a week before the popular reality show's finale after old posts resurfaced that contained a slur against Asian people. She apologized for the resurfaced posts in a nearly five minute TikTok video Wednesday.
Friday's episode saw the elimination of Ace Greene and Chelley Bissainthe, setting the stage for the finale. Green and Bissainthe were the only couple to maintain a relationship throughout most of the show.
What is 'Love Island USA?'
Stripped of their phones and connection with the outside world, five men and five women arrive in the villa and coupled up based on initial romantic interest. Throughout the season, the show introduces a steady stream of bombshells, new contestants who are brought in to disrupt existing relationships and build new storylines.
Under constant surveillance, contestants partook in kissing competitions, heart rate challenges and drama-inducing games ripe for viral moments. The final six couples even became instant parents, startled awake by cries as they were tasked with taking care of baby dolls to further test their romantic connections.
Halfway through the season, established couples were temporarily separated for Casa Amor, the show's ultimate test, and encouraged to explore new relationships with a fresh group of single contestants.
Contestants are routinely dumped from the villa, removed either by a public vote or by the islanders themselves.
Amaya and Bryan
Amaya Espinal, 25, made waves when she walked in as a bombshell early in the season and has been credited for some of the season's most viral moments.
'I never said I was perfect. I never said I didn't have any flaws. But at least I'm pretty, and at least I'm a little funny, and at least I'm my own best friend,' Espinal sang to herself in the makeup room, which prompted various covers online and inspired a Google pop-up message when you search up her nickname, Amaya Papaya.
The New York City native, who labeled herself a 'sensitive gangster,' tested various connections, including Greene, Austin Shepard and Casa Amor contestant Zak Srakaew, that all fizzled out. Her previous partners on the show said Espinal, who is Dominican, expressed affection too quickly.
A connection sparked between Espinal and Bryan Arenales, 28, a Casa Amor contestant, late in the season after he defended her, saying that 'coming from a Hispanic household, calling someone babe, mi amor, mi vida, that's just how we talk.' Arenales is from Boston and is of Puerto Rican and Guatemalan descent, according to his Instagram page.
'I always stress that as I get older, it's important to be with someone that keeps you young. I definitely think Amaya is that type of person,' Arenales said during a confessional interview.
Huda and Chris
Huda Mustafa, 24, and Chris Seeley, 27, explored different connections in Casa Amor before expressing interest in each other and eventually recoupling.
Mustafa, from North Carolina, is the first contestant in the series to be a mother, which caused tension with her initial 'Love Island' partner, Jeremiah Brown. The two coupled up and developed a strong connection very quickly, causing the other contestants to doubt their relationship.
Mustafa and Brown, 25, had a turbulent experience, leading to some of the most viral arguments of the season. The two eventually broke off their relationship and Brown was dumped from the villa halfway through the season.
Mustafa explored other connections but remained single until Casa Amor, where she built a connection with Seeley, who was initially interested in Bissainthe.
The two quickly developed an unexpected connection, bonding over Seeley's struggles with leaving his overseas basketball career and Huda's difficult experience with motherhood.
'I think me and her are actually really good for each other,' Seeley said during a confessional interview. 'She helps me kind of get out of my head and I help her, you know, be her true self and I calm her down in moments where she gets emotional or heated.'
The two hit a snag during the show's baby challenge, where they argued over Mustafa's lack of public displays of affection.
Iris and Pepe
Iris Kendall, 25, and Jose 'Pepe' Garcia-Gonzalez, 27, came in as bombshells with fellow contestant Jalen Brown in the ninth episode and explored various connections before coming together in the show's last recoupling.
Garcia-Gonzalez initially formed a strong connection with Hannah Fields, 23, which was cut short when a shocking dumping forced her to leave the villa and left him single.
Kendall initially coupled up with Brown before he was dumped from the villa along with Fields. She developed a strong connection with TJ Palma, 23, who walked in as a bombshell in episode 15, and they became a couple.
Garcia-Gonzalez coupled up with Gracyn Blackmore, 25, during Casa Amor. Each respective couple remained together until Blackmore and Palma left the villa following a mass dumping late in the season, leaving both Kendall and Garcia-Gonzalez single.
The pair, who had developed a strong friendship, then coupled up and started a romantic relationship.
'With Iris, it just feels comfortable. I think it's that whole, you know, you're friends to start and then maybe it can become something else,' Garcia-Gonzalez said during a confessional interview.
Olandria and Nic
Olandria Carthen, 27, and Nic Vansteenberghe, 24, had an unconventional path to the finale.
The pair had expressed initial interest in each other during the first episode, before settling into separate couples. Carthen, an Alabama native, was set on finding her 'cowboy,' coupling up with Taylor Williams, 24, from Oklahoma. The pair remained together for most of the season, though Williams sporadically mentioned he lacked a physical connection with Carthen.
Vansteenberghe initially coupled up with Belle-A Walker, 22, before choosing to recouple with Ortega, who walked in as a bombshell at the end of the first episode. The pair remained together throughout the show until her abrupt departure from the villa a week ago.
During Casa Amor, Carthen and Vansteenberghe didn't didn't find new connections and they were dumped from the villa. In a shocking twist, however, the contestants were offered a lifeline — they could return to the villa if they couple up with each other. The pair then briefly explored a romantic connection before ultimately deciding to remain friends.
Carthen chose to return to Williams but was left single after he recoupled with Casa Amor contestant Clarke Carraway. Vansteenberghe and Ortega stayed together, but her departure days later ultimately left him single.
Carthen and Vansteenberghe ultimately recoupled in the same episode.
'For our journey to be almost identical is mind-blowing to me. I can't wrap my head around this situation,' Carthen said during a recent confessional interview. 'Maybe it was Nic this whole time and we've just been so oblivious to it.'