“I’ve had multiple women in my life before,” Brion says minutes into his Temptation Island journey. “I’ve had threesomes. I’ve done it all.” From that moment on, a ménage à trois starts to feel inevitable — Temptation Island’s raunchy version of Chekhov’s gun. Sure enough, in Episode 5, it goes off when Brion, who came to the experiment with his girlfriend, Shanté, ends up in the shower with Alex and Courtney.
“Up until that point, everyone was talking about a threesome,” Alex, one of the singles tasked with tempting the men, tells Tudum. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, Brion wants a threesome, who’re the girls going to be?’” Alex and Courtney agree that it felt organic when it finally did happen. The women were immediately attracted to Brion — both gave their first impression bracelets to him — and their chemistry with him and with one another continued to intensify. “There would be moments when we were all just hanging out, laughing, and chitchatting about life, and it was almost giving relationship [vibes],” Courtney says. “We were all feeling it at the same time.”
Alex first approaches Brion about sleeping in his room on that fateful night, but Courtney tells Tudum she’d already spoken to him about it. “It was like a telepathy thing,” she says.
“[Courtney] is obviously super hot,” says Alex, who doesn’t identify as bisexual because she’s too much of a “free spirit” for labels. “I’m like, ‘You’re hot. I’m hot. We’re horny,’” she says. That openness is exactly what drew Courtney to Alex in the first place. “[Alex] is fun, and I like fun people. She’s also one of those people that doesn’t care what others think,” Courtney explains. “Our relationship dynamic could have gone so many ways. We could have been fighting over the same person, but we were on the same page in every way possible.”
So, halfway through the experiment, the stage was set for what went down in the villa’s bathroom. “Whether they show that or not, all the girls were showering with the guys pretty much,” Alex says. “We were all comfortable with each other. At that point, everyone had seen everyone pretty much naked.” This particular shower, of course, was far steamier than anyone expected. Once the bathroom door was shut, and the three were in the shower together, things took a turn. “I was like, Dove-on-my-loofah, legitimately showering,” Alex says. “But I did partake.”
When Brion, Courtney, and Alex finally reemerge from the bathroom, it’s morning. As he hops into bed alone, Brion reflects on the previous evening. “I didn’t … wake up with any regret,” he says. “I’m still respecting Shanté at the end of the day. I think women respect honesty and being true to yourself, and I think a lot of women would rather, you know, have someone just be real and talk to them. Now I’m like, ‘How do we get Angel and Amiah in the shower?’ ”
Brion’s nonchalance is what hurts Shanté the most when she finally sees the explosive clip at the next bonfire. As time passed, his outlook on that night changed. “I definitely regret doing a threesome,” Brion tells Tudum, insisting that he wasn’t on Temptation Island to leave Shanté. “No one slept in my bed. I wasn’t holding hands and making out with people every day. I f—ed up one night. … I felt terrible.” Plus, he claims that his plan all along was to keep his connections with Courtney and Alex free of emotional attachments. That’s why he didn’t ask either woman out on dates or fight to keep Courtney around at the following elimination. “I had to vote them out of the house after the threesome,” he says.
Of course, the guilt didn’t stop Brion from running his “big mouth,” Alex says. Courtney wanted to “keep [the threesome] on the DL,” so it was a “turnoff” when he shared the experience with the other men. “Honestly, what was the point of telling any of them? I mean, there’s nothing they can contribute or take away from the experience, and I just didn’t want their opinions on it,” she says. Alex, once again, was on the same wavelength. “We just carried on with our day like nothing happened, and we didn’t make … a big fuss,” she says.
But, ultimately, there were no hard feelings between the three. “What Brion and I bonded over off the bat was the fact that we typically hook up with our friends,” Alex says. “So from the beginning, we established kind of a homie vibe, and that’s what made it super comfortable.” Alex and Courtney came to Temptation Island with clear intentions, so Brion’s loose lips and date-night snubs didn’t have a lasting impact. “I didn’t go into it looking for love,” Alex says. “It was just a fun, sexy, single summer in Hawaii.” In fact, for Courtney, more serious conversations about emotional intimacy and the men’s relationships sometimes killed the vibe. “I’m not here to be your therapist,” she says. “We’re there to have fun.”
After the restrictions she faced as a participant in Too Hot To Handle Season 5, the freedom of Temptation Island was a refreshing change of pace for Courtney. “Honestly, there’s so much shame put on women for embracing their sexuality,” she says. Alex also viewed Temptation Island as an opportunity to get in touch with a different side of herself. After graduating from college pre-med and working as an executive at a tech company, Alex felt she was living a “double life.” While she kept things strictly professional at work, her sex-positive online presence was far more unfiltered. Two weeks ago, she changed her social media handles to her real name. “I’ve been living this Hannah Montana life, but now I can finally just be me.”
As for Brion, consider that threesome itch scratched. Before Temptation Island, he believed he deserved some “wild, freaky fun,” because he had a great job and was doing well in life. In hindsight, that seems “selfish,” especially when considering Shanté’s feelings. Since leaving the island, Brion says he hasn’t thought about threesomes, and he’s adamant it won’t happen again. But living on an island with women tasked with temptation, Brion knew something like this was bound to happen. “That’s why I don’t put myself in those positions [anymore].”
