After the first “bombshell” entered the “Love Island USA” villa this season, she quickly became a fan favorite and a front-runner to take home the show’s $100,000 cash prize. But on Sunday night’s episode, the show was hit with a different kind of explosion when Cierra Ortega, a 25-year-old Los Angeles-based content creator, was kicked off the show — the culmination of days of outcry after social media posts in which she’d used a racial slur resurfaced.
Fans of the popular reality TV show had taken to Reddit, TikTok, X and the comments section of the “Love Island USA” Instagram page to urge producers to remove Ortega from the show after finding she had repeatedly used the slur “chink” — an offensive term to refer to Chinese people that’s also sometimes used to generalize Asian people — on Instagram.
“Love Island USA” follows a group of singles who are living in a villa in Fiji as they look to find a connection and win favor with audience members, who vote throughout the season and ultimately decide who will take home the cash prize. The show is filmed in real time, with footage typically airing on a one- or two-day delay. The fevered discussion over Ortega’s racist posts has been happening in real time, too, but without her knowledge because contestants are cut off from the outside world to focus on their budding relationships.
In an Instagram Story from 2023 where Ortega was sharing her experience with Botox, she wrote, “I can also be a little chinky when I laugh/smile so I love getting a mini brow lift to open up my eyes and get that snatched look.” In 2015, she captioned an Instagram post of her smiling on a hill, “Still chinkin’ even at the top.”
She re-shared the 2015 post along with others in a 2020 TikTok video. On Reddit, one user shared a screenshot of a direct message they’d sent Ortega in February 2023 in response to the Botox story in which they suggested Ortega should delete the post. Another screenshot circulated of a DM from January 2024 — suggesting Ortega reposted the same Instagram story she’d already been told was offensive — in which a follower told her the slur was derogatory and even sent her the definition. The screenshot showed a response from Ortega: “oh man thankfully that’s not how I used it.”
The posts — and “Love Island” producers’ seeming lack of response — quickly sparked an outcry over anti-Asian racism that spread far beyond the bubble of the show’s fervent fan base.
Earlier this season, another cast member, Yulissa Escobar, was booted from the show — after just one episode — when a video resurfaced of her repeatedly saying the n-word on a podcast. (She apologized in a statement posted to Instagram, saying she used the slur “ignorantly, not fully understanding the weight, history, or pain behind it.”)
As Ortega’s posts circulated, some X users lamented that racism directed at Asian Americans is not treated seriously, and an anonymous petition titled “Send Cierra Home #stopasianhate” began circulating on Change.org.
Asian TikTok users weighed in on how hurtful they found her use of “the c-slur,” as many are calling it, especially in the context of saying she was getting a brow lift to correct it. “It is very offensive to compare your biggest insecurity, something that you feel you need plastic surgery about, to an entire race,” said Hannah Sophia Kim, founder of the Phlair beauty line, who had days earlier re-created one of Ortega’s makeup looks and said she was her favorite Islander.
“Asian 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,” wrote Isabelle-Anne Walker (who goes by Belle-A). A 22-year-old model from Hawaii with Filipino heritage, she was the first boot of the show and was one of only two Asian cast members this season, alongside Zak Srakaew, a model who grew up in Thailand and Manchester who was dumped from the island on Sunday’s episode. “It is my hope that this situation can help shed light on how big of an issue anti-Asian hate actually is,” Walker continued.
As word of the controversy reached the mainstream, Ortega lost hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers (after nearly reaching the coveted 1 million mark). A friend who had been managing her social media accounts abruptly stopped posting and then quit the job. Meanwhile, Ortega was still appearing in episodes of the show, making out with her partner in a ball pit while covered in slime. She also survived a vote by the public that took place before the controversy broke.
Then, 16 minutes into Sunday’s episode, narrator Iain Stirling calmly announced, “Cierra has left the villa due to a personal situation.” Videos of crowds at viewing parties erupting in celebration began circulating.
Representatives for Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service that airs the show, declined to comment.
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In removing Ortega, producers faced a tougher dilemma than they did with Escobar. The season finale will air July 13, and Ortega had been on the show for some 30 days, at the center of many plotlines, while being partnered up with 24-year-old registered nurse Nicolas “Nic” Vansteenberghe.
Two days before the controversy broke, they became the first couple to “close off” their relationship, or become exclusive, which made them the front-runners to win the cash prize.
Nothing about Ortega’s use of the slur has been discussed on the show or on the show’s bubbly weekly recap, “Aftersun.” When Stirling announced her exit, the focus was on the dilemma now faced by Vansteenberghe, who was left “officially single.” Less than a minute of airtime was devoted to her exit.
Fan discourse around the series has always been fervent, but earlier this season, the commentary had soured so much that the show’s team issued a statement asking viewers to be civil.
“We appreciate the fans, the passion for the series, and the amazing group of Islanders who are sharing their summer with us,” said a statement posted June 24 on the show’s X account. “Please just remember they’re real people — so let’s be kind and spread the love!”
On Ortega’s Instagram Stories on Sunday night, her parents posted a lengthy response (that was quickly screenshot and shared), saying this had been “one of the most painful weeks of our lives.”
Ortega was still “away,” they wrote, and would just be learning of the commentary that’s been spiraling around her for nearly a week. They condemned the online hate she and her family have been getting and asked for compassion and patience.
“We’re not here to justify or ignore what’s surfaced,” they wrote. “We understand why people are upset, and we know accountability matters. But what’s happening online right now has gone far beyond that.”
“When she returns, we believe she’ll face this with honesty, growth and grace,” they continued. “While she’ll always be our little girl, she’s also a woman, one who will take responsibility in her own time and her own voice.”
