We Got a Problem: Love Island USA Season 8 Removes Vasana Montgomery Before Premiere

We got a text! The villa hasn’t even unlocked the doors yet and we have island drama. Love Island USA season 8 has already had its biggest cringe moment before the first islander does an awkward dance in their ‘get to know me’ package. Just mere days after Peacock announced the new cast, islander Vasana Montgomery was handed the pink slip from the reality dating show. Why? Some videos found their way back on Beyonce’s internet showing the reality star hopeful using a racial slur.

Fans are asking how this keeps happening, rightfully so, and production is left scrambling to patch up the cast list before the June 2 premiere.

So, what exactly went down? Peacock shared the cast list, and the internet went to ‘internetting’ and dug up the receipts on everybody. In two separate videos, the 25-year-old business owner who hails from Beaverton, Oregon, is seen rapping along to a song and dropping the N-word instead of omitting the lyric. In the second video she uses that same word while playing an arcade game. The videos were quickly shared and reposted on TikTok and X.

The backlash came in like votes and fans demanded accountability and Peacock delivered. News broke yesterday, May 30 that Montgomery was officially let go and scrubbed from all the promotional materials, losing her villa ticket before she could unpack. The biggest question hanging over this entire mess is simple: how did production let this slip through the cracks? The internet is forver and background checks for reality television candidates are supposed to be tight.

The word on the street is that the videos made it through a vetting loophole. Due to the videos initially being on private social media accounts and not available publicly, the casting department missed them. It wasn't until the official cast announcement gave Montgomery a massive public platform that former acquaintances leaked the footage.

While the explanation makes sense, fans are still upset that this keeps happening. The Love Island USA team is now left with a gaping hole in the premiere lineup with only days left on the countdown clock. Remember last season when Yulissa Escobar was removed in the second episode after an old podcast surfaced and she was caught using the same racial slur. Later that same season, Cierra Ortega was canned for using a slur targeting the Asian community.

While we wait to see how the network handles the issue on screen, one thing is certain: the internet is forever, and the receipts will always be found.

What do you think of all this drama? Drop a comment!