Earlier this week on “Love Island USA” ― Peacock’s popular dating reality show ― a bombshell was dropped, but you wouldn’t have known it by how it was announced: As the cast of 20-somethings lounged around the villa in swimsuits, Iain Stirling, the puckish Scottish narrator of the show, announced that one contestant ― Cierra Ortega ― had left the show for a “personal situation.”
Because no further details were provided, a casual viewer may have been confused by the narrated reveal: Had someone in Ortega’s family died? Did she have a particularly bad case of the stomach flu?
More invested fans of the reality show ― the ones who religiously track the subreddits and watch TikTok commentary ― knew the full story: For about a week prior, fans had heavily campaigned to get Ortega kicked off the show after posts resurfaced where the reality star appeared to use the word “chink” ― a racial slur against Chinese people and those of East Asian descent ― not once but twice.
In one Instagram story reportedly from February 2023, the 25-year-old content creator from Los Angeles explained her reasoning for getting Botox and let the word slip: “I can also be a little chinky when I laugh/smile so I love getting a mini brow lift to open up my eyes and get that snatched look,” she wrote in the story.
