Amaya Papaya for president! Love Island USA‘s headline-making seventh season wrapped tonight, crowning Amaya Espinal and Bryan Arenales as the winners.
“I would do this ride all over again if it led me to him,” Amaya said. Prior to being announced the winners, Bryan and Amaya chose to “close off” and leave the villa as a couple that would continue to date in the real world.
After the celebration, Madix quickly moved forward with determining the winners of the $100,000 prize. Presenting both Amaya and Bryan with an envelope that either said $0 or $100,000, the person who selected the prize money had to decide whether to take it all for themselves or split it with their partner. And of course, after Bryan pulled the $100,000, he chose to split it with Amaya.
Along with Amaya and Bryan, the final couples included Huda and Chris, Olandria and Nic, and Iris and Pepe. Chelley and Ace were dumped from the Villa during Friday’s episode.
In addition, Peacock announced Sunday night that the Love Island USA reunion special will premiere Aug. 25 and will be hosted by Ariana Madix and Andy Cohen. Peacock also said Madix will host Season 2 of Love Island Games, set to premiere Sept. 16.
Hosted by the Vanderpump Rules alum, Love Island USA has had its biggest season yet. The reality series first aired on CBS for five seasons, though it never quite reached the same success that its UK counterpart achieved. That changed last summer when it moved to Peacock and hired Madix to host; Madix had become more famous in the wake of the “Scandoval” cheating scandal that rocked her life and the cast of the long-running Bravo show she had been a part of. The sixth season broke viewership records, becoming the Number One reality series across all platforms.
The seventh season has been even bigger and more dramatic. By the second week of the season, the show had racked up 1.2 billion minutes viewed. The increase in viewership has been a mix of drama both in and out of the villa, not unusual for the show, which often elicits a lot of social media conversation and viewer interaction due to the voting element. On Day Three, contestant Yulissa Escobar was removed from the villa after videos of her using slurs surfaced online. On Day 26, just one week before the finale, contestant Cierra Ortega was removed for using anti-Asian slurs on Instagram. Ortega’s removal was particularly notable given how late in the game it occurred, given that she was in the only exclusive couple on the show at the time.
This season has also invited more twists than usual, placing an atypical amount of power in the viewers’ hands for eliminations and more. Hardcore fans have emerged for many contestants, especially Huda Mustafa and Amaya Espinal, both of whom made it to the Top Four and are leaving Fiji with over one million Instagram followers each. There have been growing concerns with bullying, however, both within the villa and by the fans, who went so far as to call ICE on Ortega’s family after her Instagram posts were exposed.
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