Inside the Villa: Love Island USA Stars Reveal What Viewers Don’t See on TV
While Love Island USA fans watched their favorite season six stars endure heartbreak and build forever bonds, there were many moments cameras didn’t catch.
Indeed, amid the games and dramatic dumpings, there was plenty of downtime to chat on the deck, snuggle in their shared bedroom and chow down on their favorite snacks.
“I loved all the food,” Liv Walker admitted in an exclusive interview with E! News. “If you ask anyone, I was probably the biggest snack eater. They showed me a montage of how many times I carried all the snacks and I was a little concerned for myself. But they were constantly stocked.”
As for the Islanders’ go-to treats? “One of my favorite snacks was the chicken chips,” Nicole Jacky explained. “I feel like we don't really have those in America. Those were good.”
She added, “I'm not a huge sweets person, but I ate a lot of gummies in there. And toasties, of course.”
Gummies were also a go-to for Kaylor Martin. “The pancakes and the cookies and gummies were the best part, in a scary way,” she gushed, “because we slammed the food down.”
With a house full of 20-somethings, things could occasionally get messy—literally. Luckily, there was an all-star cleaning staff in Fiji helping ensure their living conditions were in top shape. And even the Islanders were shocked at their prowess, helping keep things tidy amid the camera crews.
“We have an amazing crew,” Liv noted, “and I think they're even better at their jobs, because no one can see them. No one wants to see someone raking a lawn or anything like that.”
Plus, fans would be aware if the stars were dissatisfied. “There's some germophobes and people who if the sheets won't change daily, they would complain,” she said. “And a lot of us have long hair—you'd see the hair marks.”
But while fans didn’t get to see the cleaning crews working their magic, Kordell Beckham shared insight into the process of keeping the bedroom tidy.
“We'll be over there cooking, or girls up doing their makeup,” he explained, “and I'll come back in the room to grab something I forgot, and I'll see them take the sheets off, change them. Even saw some of them was changing the pillowcases as well. Taking those off, changing them to new ones, cleaning the room, carpet—all of that.”
Kenny Rodriguez also praised the staff at the villa. “The team there at Fiji is great,” he gushed. "They made us feel so at home.”
That said, he did reveal, “There was like a Band-Aid that I saw under the covers multiple days. So, that was one thing I was iffy about.”
While Kaylor wasn’t entirely sure the cleaning crew came in to change the sheets every day, citing her own experiments, she emphasized, “We don't live in filth.”
While their villa may have been tidy, the space was a little cramped in certain regards. Take, for instance, Love Island’s signature single bedroom, where every contestant spends the night during their stay. That is, of course, unless they win a rare visit to the hideaway or tensions in the villa lead to a night banished on the deck.
And having many, many roommates come with its own set of challenges.
“The worst part sharing a bed with everyone," Kaylor told E!, "was freaking Kordell, Kendall [Washington] and Miguel [Harichi] snoring every single night so loudly that I'd have to wake up in the middle of the night going over, looking wrecked as f--k, and I had to shake them to make them stop snoring.”
Echoing her BFF’s sentiments, Liv said, “Sometimes you're so exhausted and you're like, ‘Oh my God. Like, please be quiet.’”
Kaylor also wasn’t afraid to take matters into her own hands. “I told Kendall,” she revealed, “the next time I heard him snoring, I was going to put my hands over his nose so he gasped for air, because it would get so bad.”
Nicole—who cited her partner at the time Kendall as one of the major snoring culprits—admitted that she had to turn to her own methods to get a peaceful rest. But as she pointed out, snoring wasn’t the only issue the Islanders were contending with.
“I always wore earplugs,” she shared. “But some nights you're just tired and don't remember, and then it's either snoring or people making out, and you don't get a lot of sleep.”
While Kordell revealed that next to nothing stood in the way from his slumber, he found it funny that “when you're up, you start hearing people kissing and s--t.”
However, he stressed that he wasn’t bothered in the least. After waking up to the sound of kissing or “somebody eating or chewing on gum or some s--t, and I just start laughing, and I'll turn around and go back to sleep.”
Kenny, meanwhile, made sure to take three melatonin every night to drown out the noise.
“People are kissing on each other,” he explained. “They think it's like a podcast time, they're up just talking about the day's drama. You know, it's just so weird being in the room. And I went to boarding school, so I kind of had that experience. But these are overly stimulated couples.”
But despite having to contend with late night talking and some very cozy couples, the shared space reminded the Islanders of their important bond.
“I loved before going to bed, after the night, you'd come in everyone would be sitting on the bed and chatting,” Liv recalled. “Everyone takes that for granted. I love sleepovers, and maybe I just like to talk, though. Yeah, just little chats on the bed and waking up in the morning and being with everyone.”
She added, “That's where no matter what happened that night, the mood would kind of shift and we'd have a lighthearted moment.”
It was those experiences of being together every morning and night where, as Kenny put it, “I felt like, ‘Wow, we are family. We are a great group of friends. We're in a unique situation.’”
The Love Island USA season six reunion is now streaming on Peacock.
(E! and Peacock are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)
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