In 2025, Love Island USA’s struggles with race were catapulted to the forefront of the public’s minds. In just the second episode of season 7 of the hit show, Yulissa Escobar, a contestant from Miami, was removed from the show. Escobar left the villa shortly after TMZ released video evidence of her using a racial slur on two separate podcast episodes. That seemed to be it for a while, until fans uncovered posts of islander Cierra Ortega using an anti-asian slur on her social media accounts. Ortega exited the villa in episode 30, shortly before the show’s finale was set to film.

Although NBC never confirmed why the two islanders were removed, the timing and circumstances around their exits seemed to confirm that they were removed from the show for the previous racist comments. Both left the villa closely following the public’s discovery of the past racist remarks. The show has never taken accountability or recognized the due diligence failures that occurred in order for these contestants to be platformed. The show simply announced their departures by saying “Yulissa has left the villa” and “Cierra has left the villa due to a personal situation.”

Image taken by Rebecca Gray

“They knew what they were getting into.” “They signed up for this.” “They knew what to expect when they agreed to the show.” These phrases, and more, are common refrains in discourse around reality TV shows. In fact, when Love Island USA crew members reported unsafe filming conditions to then Executive Director Bush, she reportedly replied with exactly this sentiment; they “signed up for this.” Fans, producers, and journalists alike will minimize the impacts of reality television filming and production on contestants by reassuring themselves that contestants have asked for this, that they knew the pros and cons and made a rational decision in entering the show. Many contestants do go on to have lucrative careers as influencers, compete on other reality TV programs, and generally rub elbows with celebrities. 

For example, Love Island USA season 6 winners Serena Page and Kordell Beckham secured lucrative brand deals after their villa exits, including collaborations with Cheez-its, Beyonce’s hair care line Cecred, and two holiday themed campaigns with Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty. Season 7’s Olandaria Carthen has similarly remained booked and busy since leaving the villa, landing partnerships with hair care brand Amika, fast-causal food spot Sweetgreen, and luxury brands such as Jo Malone London and YSL Beauty. She has also appeared on numerous red carpets, including the 2026 Golden Globes, exemplifying the collision between reality TV stardom and Hollywood’s biggest names. Even Cierra Ortega, one of the islanders removed from the season 7 USA villa for previous use of racial slurs, has secured brand deals, most recently, including a Coachella send-off brand partnership with women’s clothing retailer Azazie Official. 

The truth is, Love Island can catapult a person into the spotlight, something contestants recognize and often want out of their time on the show. Fans can rest easy watching contestants break down, sob, scream, and experience some of the worst moments of their lives publicly because “they knew what they were getting into” and knew there are doors this experience would open up for them after. 

But how true is it that islanders actually know what they are getting into when they sign onto the show. As longtime unscripted casting director Joy Tenenberg frames things, “casting in general is all about saying as little as you can honestly in giving them as much information as you’re allowed to.” Emphasis on allowed; decisions about disclosure to contestants remains strictly in the hands of production and the network. She also says that the casting process for dating shows, as opposed to other reality programs “is a little harder and maybe a little sneakier, like you’re not really telling people what they’re getting into” 

In a 2023 lawsuit filed by two former crew members, Jasmine Crestwell and Alex Rinks further alleged that, in an attempt to bolster ratings, NBC Universal brought in the same UK-based producers who had worked on the British version for the 4th and 5th seasons of the American production. Those same producers were entangled in the U.K. version’s allegations of “racism and abusive practices.”  The lawsuit claims that islanders are entirely reliant on production for “food, shelter, and safety” as they live in close quarters, under 24/7 surveillance in a remote villa. Former Love Island crew alleged that production used multiple tactics to deprive islanders of these securities. These tactics included directing crew to “remove clocks and keep cast members awake with energy drinks, resulting in sleep of only two to four hours a night for many Islanders.” It also included scheduling testimonials during food service so that when islanders returned from their segments, the food was gone. Executive Producer Bush allegedly admitted that “she wanted the Islanders uncomfortable and miserable” hoping that it would drive emotional outbursts and make for better TV. 

The dynamic of secrecy in casting coupled with torture-inspired tactics in filming, including extreme sleep deprivation, make it hard to imagine that contestants actually have a full picture of what is in store for them when the cameras start rolling, let alone when they stop and have to reintegrate in society. 

As for racial preferences expressed on the show, those may be lumped in with other preferences in choosing partners, both in and out of the reality TV context. Ultimately, “few viewers see anything wrong with “Love Island” contestants being open about the specific traits they look for in potential suitors. Tall over short, fit over average build, tattooed over unmarked.” As Yewanade Biala explained earlier, these “types” often extend to racial preferences, giving an influential platform to the very pernicious societal biases that people seek to escape in entertainment programming.  

Profit and Power

Production companies make a lot of revenue off these reality shows and are thus incentivized to produce entertaining content for fans. Ms. Crestwell and Mr. Rinks complaint alleges that “in choosing to spice up Season 4, Love Island USA’s production company and Executive Producers made an intentional choice to pursue ratings at all costs, including at the expense of their legal obligations to cast members, crew members, and other production professionals.” Love Island USA season 7, the season where 2 contestants were removed for uncovered racist pasts, was credited with buoying NBC’s Q2 profits and bringing in a boost of new Peacock subscribers. Peacock itself is one of NBCUniversal’s top performing products. While neither Peacock nor NBCUniversal have declared how much Love Island USA has raked in, in season 7, 18 billion minutes were watched and the show was the number 1 streaming original of the summer. 

Ultimately, “the network is the one who makes the final decision on who gets cast.”

The popularity of both season 6 and season 7 of Love Island led the studio to greenlight 2 seasons of “Beyond the Villa” a docuseries following former islanders as they navigate their lives after the villa. Beyond streaming success, NBC Universal Media Group Chairman, Matt Strauss, noted that at the height of Love Island’s streaming in 2025 the highest rated app on the app store “wasn’t ChatGPT or TikTok, it was the Love Island App.” Love Island is more than a money maker for NBC, although money maker it clearly is; it has transcended media to a status of cultural relevance greatly accelerating the show’s influence. Reality TV programs are also relatively cheap to produce. They use gig workers on short term contracts to fill out the crew and the shows film “super fast…which is why the tv studios love them, because they are really cheap.”

There have been calls on Peacock and NBC Universal to do better due diligence on their contestants to avoid these kinds of scandals. Understanding the casting process can help shine a light on what can go wrong and who bears the responsibility. Ultimately, “the network is the one who makes the final decision on who gets cast.” The casting process is very long and an involved process, including a series of virtual interviews, applications, and a final in-person discussion with the network. 

The Love Island USA application begins with a written component which is 87 questions long. Of those 87 questions, there are only a few that would seemingly uncover the kinds of past conduct that has haunted the series as of late. Question 76 asks “[i]s there any other information we should be made aware of concerning your application (including anything in your past that may attract negative press or publicity)? If YES, please provide details” Questions 31-37 ask for applicant social media handles and whether the applicant has appeared on any podcasts. Most of the application digs into applicants’ love lives, their celebrity crushes, their relationship history, and their outlook on love. 

The few questions that begin to probe at potential controversy pass the onus onto applicants to reveal or confess their secrets which completely sidesteps any details contestants may not recall or be aware of. Placing this burden onto applicants allows the network some level of plausible deniability or an opportunity to wash their hands of what should be their responsibility and point fingers at deceitful or ignorant contestants, all of whom are less experienced in the reality world than production and network executives. 

 Initial interviews of applicants are conducted and edited down by casting and the network and executive producer will only watch a minute and half to three minutes of the casting interview. Casting teams do much of the initial vetting and selecting of candidates, but “there’s a huge misconception that casting directors and casting people are the ones who make the decisions… we are middlemen… at the end of the day its the executive producer and the procedures and the network that decide” 

The process of vetting candidates is a collaborative process between casting directors and the network. In the early stages casting asks background questions about criminal convictions, controversial social media accounts, and the like, in interviews. Casting is responsible for initiating the background checks, psychological evaluations, which for Love Island is a Myers-Briggs test, and health screenings for sexually transmitted infections before the candidates are passed on to the network and production. In the past, casting teams would hire external investigators to perform some of these checks, nowadays the networks have brought these processes internal and bring in their own investigatory teams. Throughout the screening process social media checks will be conducted “looking for anything that is just unsavory… anything that screams sexism, racism, any sort of bigotry.” At the end of the day however, casting has a very limited amount of time with contestants so it’s ultimately the network who digs deep into who contestants are and what stories the show can produce. 

As to what demographics networks and executive producers are looking for, casting director Jazzy Collins, who cast for season 2 of Love Island USA, explained that casting teams used to be given more express attributes of which contestants to look for, including racial demographics. In recent years, these instructions have changed. Now networks will tell casting directors that they want a diverse group of people but not provide breakdowns. However, Collins notes that one can tell retroactively what kinds of people production was looking for based on who they choose who makes the show. 

“things are gonna fall through the cracks.”

Even when networks were giving detailed lists of which demographics they did or did not want to cast on a specific program, and how many of each, they did so without running afoul of legal anti-discrimination protections. The law actually provides significant leeway for production to make those kinds of calls. Christopher Bavitz, a professor of digital and media law at Harvard Law School, explained that while these sorts of preferencing would be impermissible in traditional hiring schemes, first amendment protections over free expression grant greater latitude and discretion to casting preferences in media, including in reality TV.

There has also been an industry wide shift in casting processes. Networks are cutting down casting timelines, slashing budgets, slimming down casting teams, and in some cases even outsourcing casting to different locations entirely, all in order to further reduce costs. As Joy Tenenberg puts it, when these cuts happen “things are gonna fall through the cracks.” The problem with these cuts is that “teams are getting smaller, timeframes are getting shorter, money is less and they want to make the same show.”  

Unscripted programs are also wholesale departing California and Los Angeles. Reality TV programs led the industry in percentage drops of on-location filming in 2025. But shifts in production location are not just isolated to television or unscripted production. In 2025, L.A. experienced a 24% drop in “year-over-year … major scripted film and TV projects,” punctuating years of downturn. 

Motivation to keep the entertainment industry in Hollywood and in California has led the Golden State to issue increasing amounts of its Film and TV tax credit, which currently authorizes $750 million in tax credits to encourage local film and television production. 

The program has had success in incentivizing productions’ return to California but it also comes at an exceptional cost. Scholars and lawmakers have cautioned that competing tax credits between states has the tendency to create a “race to the bottom.” The tax credit program has been popular with local union advocates and studios alike. However, Micheal Thom, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy, noted in his expert testimony to the California Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee that “favorable research [on the issue of tax credit efficacy] also tends to have funding from the entertainment industry or its lobbyists” Industry executives are in a superior position to lobby for and develop research which supports tax credits which cost the state and taxpayers millions of dollars each year, all while threatening to leave the state if they do not receive these public benefits. 

“a lot of them don’t have lawyers.”

Additionally, casting applications for reality television programs, including Love Island’s, include legal verbiage that requires contestants to give up significant rights including giving up rights to their likeness. These contracts, known as adhesion contracts, are take it or leave it; the party who agrees does not have freedom to negotiate specific terms. Tenenberg described the provisions of these contracts as stating “we’re gonna edit this and we’re gonna make you look however we want you to look and you can’t do anything about it and you can’t sue us” The number of rights waived increases once an applicant signs on to film the actual show. These waivers are noteworthy as they can significantly impede and even completely foreclose the opportunities for contestants who have been misrepresented or mistreated in a reality TV production to assert legal rights, such as defamation claims, in court. Love Island’s Video Release and Waiver form includes language including “I hereby irrevocably release Producer, Network, and their Releasees from any and all liability arising out of their use of my Likeness and/or the Material, my participation in the application and participant selection process, and/or any exploitation of the Program, my Likeness, or the Materials on any legal theory whatsoever (including, without limitation, personal injury, rights of privacy and publicity, false light and defamation)”(emphasis added). Contestants also waive rights over their likeness “worldwide, in perpetuity.”

 These waivers are even more significant in understanding the role of power for contestants considering “a lot of them don’t have lawyers.” This also further calls into question the common belief that contestants know what they are getting into in advance of filming. When contestants sign away important rights through waivers buried among long questionnaires, without legal advice or counsel, can that really be considered meaningful consent and knowledge?

The Upshot

Reality television executives exert massive amounts of power. They wield it over contestants in the form of long, protracted application processes, where casting teams have to keep contestants in the dark. They wield it over contestants in the form of complicated legal waivers and releases that limit contestants’ abilities to know, understand, and assert their rights. They wield it over contestants in the form of abusive and indifferent filming conditions, designed to push contestants to their psychological limits in the hunt of better drama and more views. Networks wield power over society too. They wield it in the form of on-screen representations of race and gender in ways that exacerbate and reinforce harmful stereotypes and experiences, serving to normalize disparate treatment. They wield it over society by squeezing casting timelines and resources, limiting due diligence checks, and platforming individuals with concerning and hateful past messages. Networks do all of this while either consciously knowing or being entirely apathetic to their impacts. And they do it all in search of more and more profit. 

A Light for the Future

It is not all doom and gloom however. There is some cause for hope. Re-enter Jazzy Collins. Collins is an award winning casting director, who won an Emmy for her work in casting the U.S. version of The Traitors. Ms. Collins, in response to some of the very deplorable conditions of the industry discussed herein, namely experiences of racism in the production environment of another hit reality dating franchise The Bachelorette, decided to go it on her own. She created her own firm, Forced Perspective, with the goal of increasing the diversity of opportunities in storytelling. Ms. Collins has made strategic choices in choosing which clients to work with, even turning down work she didn’t believe in or she felt did not “move the needle.” Her diligent work has brought success, she was nominated for her first Artios award (an awards program for casting professionals) since creating Forced Perspective for excellence in casting season 2 of Dropout TV’s Very Important People. Personally, she has also avoided much of the outsourcing of casting jobs through her strategic decision making and has managed to stay busy in a time of ever increasing uncertainty within the industry. Jazzy Collins stands for the proposition that casting processes can and should be different and that it is possible when casting teams and producers consciously choose to make them better.