LOS ANGELES (news agencies) — “Love Island USA” will crown the winning couple of its seventh season Sunday evening, culminating a tumultuous summer full of explosive breakups and shock exits.
The finale will air on Peacock at 6 p.m. Pacific/9 p.m. Eastern, following a chart-topping run since the season premiered on June 3. The show brings young singles together in a remote villa in Fiji to explore connections with the ultimate goal of finding love.
The show, an American spinoff to the UK series, has shaken up reality TV, becoming Peacock’s most watched entertainment series on mobile devices, according to NBC Universal.
This season follows breakout success from last summer, which captured mainstream attention. “Love Island: Beyond the Villa,” a new series spinoff premiering Sunday, follows Season 6’s main cast as they navigate relationships, life and newfound social media fame in Los Angeles.
This season has also been under fire as two contestants – Cierra Ortega and Yulissa Escobar – left the villa following resurfaced posts in which they used racial slurs.
Ortega, who was half of one of the season’s strongest couples, left the villa just a week before the popular reality show’s finale after old posts resurfaced that contained a slur against Asian people. She apologized for the resurfaced posts in a nearly five minute TikTok video Wednesday.
Friday’s episode saw the elimination of Ace Greene and Chelley Bissainthe, setting the stage for the finale. Green and Bissainthe were the only couple to maintain a relationship throughout most of the show.
With $100,000 up for grabs for the winning couple, here’s a look at the season’s run and the final four couples heading into the finale.
Stripped of their phones and connection with the outside world, five men and five women arrive in the villa and coupled up based on initial romantic interest. Throughout the season, the show introduces a steady stream of bombshells, new contestants who are brought in to disrupt existing relationships and build new storylines.
Under constant surveillance, contestants partook in kissing competitions, heart rate challenges and drama-inducing games ripe for viral moments. The final six couples even became instant parents, startled awake by cries as they were tasked with taking care of baby dolls to further test their romantic connections.
Halfway through the season, established couples were temporarily separated for Casa Amor, the show’s ultimate test, and encouraged to explore new relationships with a fresh group of single contestants.
Contestants are routinely dumped from the villa, removed either by a public vote or by the islanders themselves.
Amaya Espinal, 25, made waves when she walked in as a bombshell early in the season and has been credited for some of the season’s most viral moments.
“I never said I was perfect. I never said I didn’t have any flaws. But at least I’m pretty, and at least I’m a little funny, and at least I’m my own best friend,” Espinal sang to herself in the makeup room, which prompted various covers online and inspired a Google pop-up message when you search up her nickname, Amaya Papaya.
The New York City native, who labeled herself a “sensitive gangster,” tested various connections, including Greene, Austin Shepard and Casa Amor contestant Zak Srakaew, that all fizzled out. Her previous partners on the show said Espinal, who is Dominican, expressed affection too quickly.
