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Love Island USA Season Seven contestant Yulissa Escobar has been dumped from the island after only one episode. While in the villa, the Miami native received intense backlash online after fans of the show discovered clips from a podcast appearance during which she used the N-word multiple times. Producers responded quickly. At the start of episode two, narrator Iain Stirling announced, “Yulissa has left the villa.”
Escobar’s social media comments have been flooded with viewers promising to use their first vote of the season to eliminate her from the show. In the viral clips, she frequently deploys the racial term while discussing her past relationship experiences. While on Love Island, contestants have no direct access to social media or most news from the outside. This season, the starting lineup of islanders includes two Black women and three Black men, who could have been coupled up with Escobar, or made to spend time with her, while the world watched from home, screaming warnings at the screen.
The resurfaced videos of Escobar come at a time when reality television fans expect producers to uphold a strict approach to accountability. In 2023, Big Brother evicted houseguest Luke Valentine after he casually used the N-word in conversation on the show’s live feed. Love Island U.K., the series at the root of the franchise’s popularity, will premiere next week, but has already removed an islander. Shortly after the Season 12 line-up was announced, Kyle Ashman, 23, was dropped from the show after producers discovered that he had previously been arrested on suspicion of being involved in a machete attack. He has since denied the allegation.
Love Island USA‘s sixth season was the most tremendous success the stateside spin-off has achieved thus far. It launched contestants JaNa Craig, Leah Kateb, and Serena Page, known together as PPG, into social media stardom alongside their partners Kenny Rodriguez, Miguel Harichi, and Kordell Beckham. And with this success comes an inherent parasocial attachment from the show audience.
Escobar had the misfortune of stepping into the shadow of the past season with skeletons in her closet. “Y’all keep posting her like it’s gonna change our mind about voting her out,” a comment on one of her Instagram posts reads. It has nearly 14,000 likes. Another with 3,000 likes added, “This girl on the internet saying the N word.. loud and proud. what kind of vetting did yall do producers???”
The remaining islanders include Chelley Bissainthe, Huda Mustafa, Belle-A Walker, Olandria Carthen, Greene, Taylor Williams, Nicolas Vansteenberghe, Jeremiah Brown, Austin Shepard, plus bombshells Cierra Ortega and Charlie Georgiou. Shepard has similarly come under fire online after viewers began circulating screenshots of his alleged TikTok likes that show support for Donald Trump. For now, he remains in the villa.
With Escobar gone, another slot has opened up for a hot new bombshell to enter the villa.
