love island cruelest moments

The cruelest tricks the Love Island producers have ever pulled on the contestants

They did Teddy so dirty


Last night’s Love Island saw one of the cruelest moments to ever happen to the Islanders. The girls received a postcard from Casa Amor which showed four boys snogging new girls and Liam in bed with one of them. Sure, the boys did do all of those things but this little thing called context was heavily missed out of the postcard. Teddy was painted out to be a cheater when in actual fact he slept on the day bed and was loyal to Faye the whole time.

And this isn’t the first time the producers have played rather sneaky tricks on the Islanders. It’s a reality show so a certain amount of meddling is expected but sometimes it really crosses the line from drama to plain cruelty.

Who could forget Dani Dyer in tears over the clip of Jack in Casa Amor? This moment and many others seem to be deliberately set up to cause pain and anguish for the Islanders, usually by deceiving them from the actual truth of the matter. The show purely sets up moments for entertainment forgetting the actual feelings of the Islanders involved.

These are the cruelest Love Island moments ever set up by the producers:

When the Islanders had to choose who to save – Michael or Joanna

Look I’m not a fan of Michael and I know part of Love Island involves the Islanders having to make tough decisions which includes sending some of their own home. However the time when they had to choose between sending Michael or Joanna home felt particularly cruel.

It was so late in the series that it just felt unnecessary to split up a couple who were doing pretty well. A lot of people at the time thought it was to get Michael and Amber back together, but any sane individual knows that would never have happened.

It was unkind to the Islanders to make them choose and unfair to split Michael and Joanna up.

When Marcel had to tell Dom the rumours from home

Back in season three Gabby and Marcel won a challenge and their prize was a call home. This was an odd choice seeing as the Islanders never usually get contact with the outside world, particularly with their nearest and dearest.

However it all became apparent the reason for the call was so the rumour about Mike and Jess getting together could get back in the villa. Rather than dropping the information in a text or doing a headlines game, it was engineered that Marcel would have to be the one to tell Dom the news.

It’s sad and unfair that Marcel’s one call home to his friends was taken over by news about someone else and then the double blow of Marcel knowing he should tell Dom. You can see the pain in Marcel’s face at having to tell Dom. And then of course let’s consider how twisted it was that what he was telling Dom was actually just a rumour and there was zero confirmation about it, leaving Dom sweating and unnecessarily upset.

The lie detector test in series four

Whenever the producers bought the lie detector test out it just felt like another way to hurt the Islanders. This is not Jeremy Kyle after all, there are no real questions that need to be solved with a lie detector test.

However season four felt very cruel, particularly as it was only the boys who were subjected to questioning. And again it was Dani Dyer who was hurt most with the game. Jack was asked the question “could you be tempted by other girls outside the villa?” to which he replied “no” and this was found to be a lie.

It caused a load of pain for Dani and a massive argument broke out between them all because the questions which were asked were deliberately painful.

The Headlines game in Winter Love Island

Over the years the Love Island producers have faced a lot of heat over certain challenges and the Headlines Challenge in winter Love Island was definitley one.

In the challenge Shaughna read out headlines which had missing words and the other Islanders had to guess them. One particular headline caused a lot of outrage when it was suggested Finn had his head turned in Casa Amor. As anyone who watched will know that was literally not the case at all. Finn was loyal to Paige throughout.

So it begged the question why put that headline in? It seemed purely added in to upset Paige, put doubt in her mind and question whether Finn had been lying to her. There was literally no need to include it and to this day I don’t understand why the producers thought it was a good idea.

The Shake It Off challenge

This was another challenge which seemed designed purely to hit certain Islanders right in their insecurities. Unlike the Headlines or Tweets challenge where the producers include statements from others which have already been put out there, the Shake It Off challenge used survey data they appeared to collect themselves.

As they were in charge of the survey they could have picked any question or statement but no they asked two very loaded and volatile questions that anyone could tell were going to cause some pain.

The first was “what percentage of the public think that Megan and Wes will last in the outside world?” and the second was “what percentage of the public think that new Jack will dump new Laura as soon as they leave the villa?”

Both questions resulted in a lot of unhappy faces and it just seemed pointless to put the four of them through that.

The Casa Amor postcard in season three

Season three was the arrival of Casa Amor and the first postcard to cause havoc in the villa. The main person it hurt was Gabby when she saw a picture of Marcel in a bed with another girl, despite him actually remaining loyal to Gabby the whole time.

It was the start of the show making scenes look way worse than they actually were all for the drama element at the expense of an Islander’s very real emotions. Not cool.

The postcard in this series

The Casa Amor postcard strikes again. Last night’s episode saw the arrival of the postcard showing four of the boys kissing new girls and Liam in bed with another girl.

Obviously it was incredibly cruel to show the girls this whilst they’re sat back in the main villa being incredibly loyal. I did not need or want to see Kaz crying, the girl has been through enough on this show.

However the real cruelty of this whole episode was painting Teddy out to be a cheater when he was actually being incredibly loyal to Faye. Yes he kissed a girl in a game but he slept outside the whole time and woke up in the morning talking about how much he misses Faye.

It deliberately deceives Faye, makes Teddy look untruthfully bad and could cause a whole host of problems for the couple, even a breakup, when there really is no need for it all for the sake of fives minutes of drama.

When Dani Dyer was sent a clip of Jack in Casa Amor

No scene on Love Island has ever caused so much fury from the public as when Dani was sent the clip from Casa Amor.

In season four’s edition of Casa Amor the girls are sent a video of the boys in which the girl Jack was seeing before he went in the villa rocks up and Jack says “oh my god” about a hundred times.

Naturally Dani burst into tears and said the heartbreaking sentence “why can’t I ever be happy?”. What was so unkind about this episode was the lack of context around the clip, all they showed was Jack talking about the ex but failed to show him being incredibly faithful to Dani throughout Casa Amor.

They gave her just enough information to cause a load of pain, tears and doubt in herself. And made Jack out to look like someone he wasn’t. Three years on and I will still never forgive the Love Island producers for one of the cruelest moments they created.

Love Island 2021 continues on ITV2 at 9pm tonight. For all the latest Love Island news and gossip and for the best memes and quizzes, like The Holy Church of Love Island on Facebook. 

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