A Massachusetts native made a huge splash on this season of the hit Peacock show “Love Island USA.”
Everett native Bryan Arenales, 28, entered the show in the middle of the season as a bombshell and wound up paired up with Amaya Espinal, the breakout star of Season 7.
In Sunday’s finale, Arenales and Espinal received the most public votes and were awarded $100,000.
“Meeting Amaya here turned my experience around ridiculously,” Arenales said after the results were in. “I’m so thankful to meet this person, I would do this experience a hundred times over.”
The 2-hour episode went live shortly after 8:30 p.m. TODAY.com live blogged the entire finale.
The hot new bombshell who’s entered the villa on “Love Island” is Bryan Arenales, of Everett. We caught up with his trusted barber in Lynn to learn about his last-minute preparations and the man managing his social media accounts while he’s on the show.
There was a rooftop watch party at the Revere Hotel in Boston Common Sunday night. The hosts of The Bottoms podcast sold 200 tickets.
“Everett’s finest. They’re going to Encore after. Then Kowloon,” Brandon Ward and Mike Montiel said with a laugh.
“We take it home for Boston. Dominican love! Dominican love on top,” Whitney Etienne said.
The final four couples were Arenales and Espinal, Chris Seeley and Huda Mustafa, Pepe Garcia-Gonzalez and Iris Kendall, and Nic Vansteenberghe and Olandria Carthen. Seeley and Mustafa broke things off during Sunday night’s finale.
“Love Island USA” is an American spin-off of the original U.K. series. The show airs daily except Wednesdays and brings young singles together in a remote villa in Fiji to explore connections with the ultimate goal of finding love.
Couples undergo challenges and are encouraged test their romantic connections as new contestants are introduced. Islanders are routinely “dumped” from the villa throughout the series as stronger couples form.