For reality TV fans, “Love Island” wasn’t just a show — it became a cultural phenomenon. As the series was syndicated to the United States, it fueled an obsession with a “Love Island” lifestyle, British culture and cheeky Britishisms like “mugged off” (dumped) or having a “banter” (chat), as well as jokes about the personalized water bottles the Islanders constantly lugged around.
After four years on the air in Britain, the show finally launched an American version in 2019. With the hype surrounding the original series, expectations were high. However, “Love Island USA” landed on CBS, which, in a nutshell, sucked the fun out of the show because Federal Communications Commission regulations meant taming it for American television. (Also, half the pleasure of the U.K. franchise was the accents — and while there were a handful of international cast members on the U.S. series, American accents aren’t quite as entertaining.) In 2022 it switched to the streaming service Peacock, where there was a bit more raunchiness permitted and a lot more of the Bravo fandom watching. Still, it hadn’t fully found its footing.
This summer that all changed. The show has a new host and a diverse cast, and American fans finally fell for the series, with many saying it has begun to outshine the original version. Now, according to preliminary data from Nielsen, “Love Island USA” has become the No. 1 reality show in the United States across all streaming platforms.
From the moment Ariana Madix sashayed into the colorful Fiji villa sporting a dripping, golden revenge gown and a devilish twinkle in her eye, viewers should have assumed, as “Love Island USA’s” newest host, that she would be adding an edge to the series. After all, Madix has been a fixture of one of reality TV’s most iconic shows, “Vanderpump Rules,” for 11 seasons. Even more eyeballs have been on her since last year, when she catapulted to fame virtually overnight in the wake of #Scandoval, the cheating scandal between her and ex-partner Tom Sandoval. Casting Madix as the host of “Love Island USA” was some top-tier reality TV drama, considering it was the reality show her ex famously refused to watch with her.
Not only were “Love Island” fans tuning in this time around, but “VPR” viewers were, too. “I have seen a lot of people comment that they haven’t watched before, but they started watching because I was hosting and they stayed because of how great the show was,” Madix says. “I am a fan, I am invested in everything that’s going on. I really do care.” In her “ideal world,” she adds, everyone would find themselves in a “long-term, great relationship coming out of the show and live happily ever after.”
Simon Thomas, president of ITV Entertainment and head of international programming, can’t help but notice parallels between Madix and the late “Love Island” host Caroline Flack. “She’s the older sister that the Islanders want to be or grow up to be, and she’s been publicly unlucky in love,” he says. “And that’s tough, but it’s relatable.”
Of course, it isn’t solely Madix who has helped the show hit its stride. The casting, and the chemistry that’s come from it, have been divine. Madix herself called the cast both “insane” and “perfect” in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight.” According to Thomas, the “magic” comes from the fact that there are no “hard-and-fast rules” when it comes to selecting Islanders. “You have to be really, really ridiculously good-looking,” he says. “And you have to be able to chat.”
This season, there’s Rob, a snake-catching, overalls-sporting hunk from Season 5’s Casa Amor who experienced a poolside breakdown and seems to flip-flop from charmer to walking red flag. (Casa Amor is a separate villa filled with tempting new singles. Islanders are sent there midway through the season to test their existing relationships.) Then there’s JaNa Craig, who loves to read the dictionary, had an epic, tearful rant about plants and has been vulnerable about the exhaustion of repeated rejection. The animal-obsessed Leah Kateb and her dry sense of humor have repeatedly been at the center of the show’s drama.
Serena Page, who had been with Kordell Beckham since the beginning, not only gave the brother of NFL star Odell Beckham Jr. a scathing takedown for bringing his Casa Amor connection Daia McGhee back to the villa but flipped a plate of eggs and avocado toast he made for her onto his bare chest. Then there’s the exhausting romance between Kaylor Martin and Aaron Evans — he won “The Traitors UK” — which has been plagued by the aftereffects of his Casa Amor connection with Daniela Ortiz Rivera. If it sounds complicated, it is. But it’s been nothing short of the TV equivalent of a chef’s kiss.
Ira Madison III, a writer and co-host of the podcast “Keep It,” likens the dynamics of this season to competition shows like “Big Brother” and “Survivor,” and says it’s made “Love Island USA” must-see TV. “It’s a competitive sort of aspect to the game that’s happening this summer, in a way that I haven’t really seen,” he says. “If these people were in the ‘Big Brother’ house, they’d be playing that game well, too.”
And yet, one of the most compelling aspects of this season has had nothing to do with the flings or the flirting — it’s been the friendships. For the most part, the women on the show have been fiercely loyal to one another, even when vying for the same male suitor.
Ben Thursby-Palmer, the show’s executive producer, calls the ladies this season “the Spice Girls of Love Island.” “They are a really eclectic bunch of people, but they really support each other,” he says. There have also been times on the show when the men seemed to like each other more than the women they’re supposed to be pursuing. One of the core bromances has been between Rob and Aaron, and dating the same woman — like Daniela — has never gotten in the way of their bond.
“That [closeness] makes the stakes high when you’re watching dramatic moments, or if a recoupling is happening, and you’re not sure who’s going home, it really matters to everyone there,” Madix says. “I think that feeling translates to the audience feeling like all of these things really matter when you’re watching them.”
The current season, which concludes on Sunday, also brought new twists. For instance, male contestants could choose whether they wanted to go to Casa Amor, and if they did, they’d sneak off into the night. “They didn’t even have to go, but they chose to leave. So for the girls back in the villa, [it’s like] good to know that they chose that. It’s just [about] living in your choices a lot more this year,” Thursby-Palmer says.
The producers also created a game that had a couple do a dance-off, which at the end would reveal whether one of them wanted to recouple. “It’s a very creative and almost diabolical twist to the most simple and mundane aspects of the show [that] I think made the drama that much more heightened and exciting,” says Mariah Smith, a writer and co-host of “Smith Sisters Live” on Sirius XM’s Radio Andy.
While Season 6 has been addictive for viewers this summer, the team behind “Love Island USA” isn’t strategizing or thinking ahead on how to build on the momentum.
Thursby-Palmer says, laughing, “I’m just trying to get through this season, to be honest.”
