As one of the most popular reality shows, people have many questions about Love Island. The show aired for six seasons in the U.K. and in 2019, the American version aired its first season, and the second aired in 2020. Fans wonder what the contestants are paid and what Arabella Chi has been doing since she starred on the show for one week.
While many reality shows are known to edit quite heavily, many people say that Love Island is a lot faker than others in the genre. Let's take a look at why.
What Contestants Say
Just like Teen Mom has a lot of editing, there are parts of Love Island that are fake.
Contestants say that the show follows a script.
According to The Daily Mail, someone who was on the show said, "People don’t realise how scripted it is, how much the producers influence it. It is completely disingenuous and a lot of the time very, very fake. It isn’t fair to mislead the audience like that. The producers don’t care what they’re doing to people as long as they’re making their ratings. We were treated like performing animals and the current cast are still."
The publication says that iTV has explained that Love Island is a "combination of reality and produced elements." It's definitely interesting that they mention the production aspect.
Fake Scenes
There is a scene on the show that people talk about: according to The Daily Mail, when Georgia Steele and Jack Fowler kissed, that was set up so producers could create drama. A former cast member said that Georgia and Sam Bird didn't actually date, although they appeared to have a romance on the show.
People say that the Jack and Georgia kiss scene was shot several times.
Tyla Carr, who was on the show in 2017, said that producers set up scenes.
According to The Daily Star, she explained, "What viewers don’t see is there is always a producer on site. They don’t live in the villa with us but someone generally comes in every hour to have a chat. They would often tannoy an announcement asking for someone to come to the sofa to have a chat with one of the producers. They tell you what they want you to talk about, and who with.”
Tyla also explained that if cast members were going to talk to someone and it would be considered "important" then they needed to let producers know. If they had the conversation without letting producers in on it, then they would have to shoot the scene again.
In an interview with AZ Central, cast member Mackenzie Dipman shared that some conversations weren't shown on the show or if they were, it was only a snippet of it. She mentioned one chat in particular that was a crucial part of her relationship with Connor Trott.
She explained, "When I left (in Episode 22), they didn't show that we had a very long conversation on the balcony by the 'spill the tea' sign. They showed about a minute of it; we talked up there for almost an hour, I want to say, if not more. That was a very necessary conversation. And the gist of it by the end was that we very much saw that as a first conversation towards getting back together."
Mackenzie also said that when she was booted off the show, Connor said that he loved her, and that was the first time he said those words. That part didn't make it onto the show, though.
What Fans Have Noticed
Viewers have pointed out some parts of Love Island that do make it seem fake or staged. When they see something that seems off, they talk about it on social media, and this has happened quite a few times.
According to The Tab, a fan tweeted that when Chris Taylor and Francesca Allen talked and it was 20 seconds long, it seemed like he had eaten a whole plate of food.
Fans have also talked about how when the cast members are on dates, they don't seem to eat anything that is in front of them.
In an interview with Evening Standard, Richard Cowles, the show's co-creator, said that Love Island became popular once the third season was airing in the U.K. He said it didn't become popular right away when it started airing in 2015 and the production is pricey, but then people really started talking about it.
Cowles told the Evening Standard, "At heart it’s a warm show. It’s about falling in love. It’s relatable to everyone." Cowles also said “It’s an aspirational show. It’s an aspirational setting — beautiful villa, island, aspirational-looking people.”