How ‘Love Island USA’ Became a ‘Perfect Storm’ of Reality TV Magic
It’s summertime, which means a group of gorgeous twentysomethings have taken over a kitschy villa in Fiji in an attempt to find love — or win a $100,000 cash prize — on Love Island USA. Since it first hit television screens back in 2015, Love Island U.K. has been the reigning favorite amongst fans in the Love Island universe, which includes iterations in the U.K., U.S., and Australia, as well as Love Island Games, which is a spin-off combining cast members from all of the different shows. But the cast members on Season Six of Love Island USA, who are all currently being filmed around the clock in real time for the world to see as the show streams on Peacock, have catapulted the series into appointment viewing. According to Peacock, Neilsen ratings show that Love Island USA is the number one reality series in the U.S. across all streaming platforms. NBCUniversal also says the show’s ratings have doubled from last season.
While it’s not uncommon for Love Island to include chaotic moments and unpredictable twists and turns, the cast members on this season in particular have driven the show’s drama to new heights, from constant recouplings and a revolving door of new cast members, to memorable and outlandish fights between romantic duos and friends. One day, everyone’s favorite couple is in a state of bliss — some of them even throwing the “L bomb” around — and then the next, the Islanders are at odds, throwing jabs and turning their backs on the very people they were once committed to.Tears are shed. Food is dumped on others. Shocking decisions about who to send home occur.
Plus, Vanderpump Rules’ Ariana Madix entered the villa this season as a new host, building a new kind of excitement around the show and breathing new life into the series itself. Madix also regularly appears on Aftersun, a weekly talk show breaking down the Islanders’ drama.
“Yes, this is a show called Love Island and we love people falling in love but it’s actually a show about people we can relate to who have the same problems as us going away for summer vacation and having fun,” says Simon Thomas, president of production company ITV Entertainment and Love Island USA’s executive producer. “We want people to be sex-positive, we want them to have fun. The judgment is, can you do that without hurting someone else? We’re not asking, will they fall in love? We’re seeing, will they hurt each other once they’ve hooked up? And I think that’s been the test that they keep running into this year in a way that I’ve never seen.”
Thomas has had a long career working in unscripted television, including his involvement with the Love Island franchise. He’s served as executive producer since Love Island USA’s inception in 2019 and even though the show has always been great, in his opinion, he knows the current season streaming on Peacock is “magic.” There’s been a steady and loyal viewership since Season Six premiered in June, Thomas says, but in the last few weeks there’s been a boom in the conversation happening around the show, catapulting it into the pop-culture zeitgeist.
About 400 people, from camera operators to producers and post-production editors, work behind the scenes to turn the show’s 24 hours of daily footage into can’t-miss TV, taking over an entire resort near the Islanders’ villa. The resort’s reception hall serves as the show’s control room where there’s 24-hour surveillance of the Islanders’ shenanigans, with producers and editors deciding in real time what they want to include in the next day’s episode.
“It’s like a factory line. Things are happening in the villa, they get seen, they’re being recorded, they get logged, then post-production inherits a list of hundreds of stories,” Thomas says. “Halfway through that day, someone’s stitching those scenes together into acts, and then somebody else comes in and starts turning that into an episode. Then we watch that show and we refine it further.”
The Season Six finale will stream on Sunday, July 21, but a lot can happen between now and then, as Love Island viewers well know. While on location in Costa Rica working on another unscripted show that remains a mystery for now, Thomas spoke to Rolling Stone over Zoom about why he thinks this season of Love Island USA has piqued viewers’ interest.
You’ve worked on the Love Island franchise, and in unscripted TV, for a long time. What do you think has worked so well on this season of Love Island USA?
The phrase we’ve been using to describe this season is “perfect storm.” It’s hard to describe one element of the show as the single thing that’s driven this forward. Everything has been firing all at once, which is like magic. It’s funny, the cast talks about the “Love Island gods” and we talk about them, too. I don’t know what kind of gods they are. They’re fickle, perhaps, but they’ve definitely been smiling on us. It all starts with the cast, then everything else sort of stacks on top of that. They’re really fascinating people who are rich and complex. There aren’t strictly bad or good people; it’s complicated. Ariana [Madix] joining us has been great because it’s brought a different group of people to the show. Adding the Aftersun episodes into the mix is great because we have a place where people can have a conversation about the show and feel like their feelings are validated.
I think the funniest thing for me has been watching TikToks of people watching Love Island in public — they’re holding their phones, watching the show on subways, in restaurants, and in clubs. I also love the genre of girls laying in bed holding their laptops on their chests and watching closely, just absolutely going off about something. My other favorite genre is boyfriends, husbands, or fathers watching from the side, you’ll see the person on the couch filming, and the dad is just standing there hovering, and then they’ll join in.
What goes on in a typical day behind the scenes for production? How do you turn episodes around in such a tight timeline?
The villa is this amazing place in Fiji right on the water, built on top of a giant resort. There are about 80 robotic cameras around the villa and half a dozen other studio-type cameras. We have a control room that’s taping that feed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are operators manning the physical cameras whenever they’re awake, and there are operators manning the robotic cameras 24 hours a day. We have all these cameras streaming in the control room and we can basically record two or three stories at once. We have a team of operators, producers, and loggers watching the streams and following what’s interesting, and then they turn those things into stories. What happens on a Monday is delivered to the network as complete tape on a Tuesday. It’s very normal to come in and do a shift starting at 10 p.m., see something on the monitor happening live, and see it in a finished shot by the time you leave your shift, beautifully polished and complete with music. We have 400 people running this machine; if one person were removed from the machine, it wouldn’t stop, but any one person on set could make the show great that day.
This is Ariana Madix’s first year hosting. How do you think she adds to the show?
The thing with Ariana is people know her story and they really empathize with her. They feel strong feelings about Ariana and it just so happens that the Venn diagram of the feelings that you feel for Ariana and the feelings that you might feel for our Islanders are probably a perfect circle. There is a level of synergy, for lack of a better word, that makes a lot of sense. I think Ariana also feels those feelings. She feels those feelings for those people, and she’s empathizing with the Islanders. That makes it feel more authentic.
When did you know this season was a huge hit?
In the few days leading up to the show, we did the introductory interviews and cut everyone’s packages before the show started filming, and I remember thinking, “This is a different group.” They are all just as ridiculously good-looking as we’ve ever seen with casts before, but they all have different idiosyncrasies, vulnerabilities, and things that felt different. I’m not some savant, I didn’t go, “Oh, that’s going to make a great show.” I just looked at them and thought this was going to mean something different. You sit there nervously the first night; then the first night felt great, the second night felt great. That was a good sign. I think what I’ve been pleasantly surprised by is that we’ve been sitting in the top 10 original streaming charts for the last three weeks or so, our minutes watched has gone up 100 percent each time, and the conversation has lit on fire right now. But I think there was a silent viewership that started watching at the beginning, and now people feel like they have to talk about this. It’s almost like the conversation has been the thing that’s been steamrolling but the content has been there from Day One.
How do you think social media has helped amplify viewers’ interest in this season? Have you changed your social media strategy in terms of how or when you roll out clips from each episode?
Shows get lost in the streaming universe, so having our social media strategy and team is our lifeline, and we prioritize that. Those clips are spoiler-y, but only in the sense that we are trying not to gatekeep a shot. We are behind a paywall and if you want to watch Love Island USA and see every minute, you do have to subscribe to a streamer. But we will put whole chunks of that show on TikTok because people will see it and they’ll be like, “Oh, what is this?” We’ve done it for years, that way you can follow the breadcrumbs back and then you want to see how it played out in the full episode. The strategy hasn’t changed so much as it has evolved with the way that we interact with the shows. When you do have amazing content that people want to talk about, the machine is there to run with it and amplify it.
This season you tried to change things up with Casa Amor, a twist where the men had the option to stay in the villa with their partners or go to a new residence and meet a new group of women. Are you open to amending the Casa Amor experience in future seasons so cast members don’t always know what to expect?
I think TV death is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result. There’s no sacred cows here, we are not that show. When we’re shooting on a Monday, we might think on Wednesday we’re going to do a game or challenge, and on Thursday [someone might get dumped from the villa], and then something happens on Tuesday that changes all of that. Our producers talk about it like stocking the pantry; we want to have different ingredients ready to go and then make the meal that makes sense. Knowing how Casa Amor went this year, I think I’ll be putting it under a heavy lens as to what that looks like next year.
How do you decide which “bombshells” (new singles brought in to try and couple up with existing cast members) get introduced in the villa compared to who is brought into Casa Amor?
With bombshells, it’s phenomenally hard for those islanders to come in and change the dynamics. It takes a very particular type of personality; that person has to be attracted to people in the villa and the people in the villa would have to be attracted to that type of person. Producers have met several hundred people in person and over Zoom to get down to the group that we work with and have in our casting vault. It is an organic process that’s made on the ground as we’re going. The potential bombshells are watching the show while they’re in holding and waiting to be brought in and we’re wondering who they’re into. Particularly with Casa Amor this year, it was fluid up to the day that they went in. –
The recent challenge where the Islanders read social posts about them from the public caused quite a stir inside the villa. How did production choose which tweets they wanted the Islanders to read?
We take pride in our duty of care. We still talk to Islanders from Season One and we will always support them after the show. We support anyone who reaches out to us, particularly with the social media stuff. I think it can be really tough out there but I also think about that saying, “If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions coming back to haunt me.” They’re living in a bubble so those social posts are selected not to mislead but to reflect the opinions that are out there, and that’s illuminating for the Islanders. I think classically where it’s most illuminating is for those who have been done wrong by someone and then they forgive and forget. They have no other way of knowing what that person was saying isn’t always the whole truth. It gives us an opportunity to clue them in and also make the viewers feel heard. Some audience members are like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe they put that tweet in because it’s not fair,” and others are like, “I’m glad that you’re sharing the thing that I feel passionately about.” Nothing is just mentioned to be mean, nothing is targeted to people. It is all about revealing things to them. Truthfully, this year the audience is fragmented in such a way around who they stan that I’ve never seen. Normally by now fans are united behind one couple but right now, they’re all over the place.
Are there any current couples, or just individual cast members, who you think are underrated?
We’ve had seasons of the show where I felt that bombshells have come in and gone out, almost because the original cast is rusted on, and I thought that was such a shame because they didn’t have their moment. If you look at Rob [Rausch] last year, Rob went into Casa Amor, came out of Casa Amor, and now he’s a huge star on the show this year. But this year, even those who have come back from Casa who got dumped because original couples get back together, they’re all having their moment. If you look at that cast, that is not the same cast that was there two days ago, five days ago, a week ago, or two weeks ago. Everyone’s getting a moment. Also, now we have Love Island Games, we have the Aftersun specials, and we have these other shows where someone can go, so we know we’re going to see these Islanders again.
Love Island UK films a winter season in addition to their summer seasons. Is there a world in which Love Island USA expands, especially given its popularity now, that way too?
I’m really proud of Love Island Games because it gives you an opportunity to see your favorites that you really love come back together and button up stories that have evolved after the show. The blessing of that show last year was they all still hooked up and had feelings but then they’re also playing competitive games. That show serves as our secondary show. It’s not on this year because we’ve got the Olympics and the timing is slightly different but I hope to see that show return in the future.
We’ll play it as it comes. We shouldn’t just do more Love Island because the show is successful. What does the story warrant and motivate? And let’s go do that. Let’s satisfy our hunger as opposed to force-feeding someone. We keep a pretty close eye on that. Also, I’m the seller. It’s up to Peacock.
The friendships on this season seem to be just as much of a focus as the romantic relationships, even though the cast members keep saying, “This isn’t Friendship Island.” How do you think the cast members’ friendships have played an important role on this season?
From our first season, we wanted to cast people who would feel like they could be friends because, as an audience, when you’re watching every day, it feels like the Islanders become your friends. What’s really interesting about this cast this year is they’re not one friendship group. They come together but they’re also little pods of friends, so you can kind of find your people in this cast. I think friendship is a critical component of Love Island, full stop. We’ve all been 24, we’ve all gone away with our friends for vacation, we’ve all hooked up with our friends and then fallen out, then come home and are either friends or not friends again, and then remember that vacation as a great time. I think that’s what this show is, so the audience should feel that way too. They say it’s not Friend Island, but I think it kind of is. It should be.
Fans want this season of Love Island USA to get nominated for an Emmy. How would that feel?
I think all we can do is put the best show together in the most authentic way. We pride ourselves on being non-cynical and not chasing attention. I think there are shows out there that feel so desperate. I really can’t stand it when I hear people talk about their shows and say, “Well that was an Emmy scene,” or “Oh my God, that’s ratings gold.” That is such a weird way of looking at it. I’ve worked on so many shows that have been amazing but have not performed well and I’ve worked on shows that are not great but have done really well. That’s not an indicator of quality, it simply proves that you’ve provided the audience with something that they’re interested in at the time they are interested in.
I’m proud of Love Island USA. It’s hard to pick favorites with your children, but I look at Season Two, and I love that show, I could still watch that show now. Last year’s season we were so happy with, Love Island Games is fantastic, and this season is just something else. So yeah, getting recognition is fine and great. Everyone loves to be patted on the back, but that’s not what we’re doing. We just focus on the thing that’s in front of us and try and do the thing that makes the most sense for the people on the show and for the people who want to watch the show.
CORRECTION —July 12, 4pm ET: A previous version of this article described Simon Thomas as the showrunner and executive producer of Love Island USA. Thomas is the show’s executive producer.
