Intro for June 19, 2026

Dear Gossips,

New performance stats for Love Island USA season 8, just reported yesterday, per Deadline: “Season 8 has come out of the gate with 2.3B minutes viewed through its first two weeks, up 50% from Season 7”. Season 7 followed the breakthrough – and still the best – season, which was 6, featuring PPG when Love Island USA became Peacock’s most valuable series. And season 8 is doing even better numbers, so the streak continues, and so does the lying.

I have watched every season of Love Island USA, the only western reality show I f-ck with, and there has been more lying this season than maybe all the seasons combined. So many lies, so many liars, multiple liars, saying one thing one minute and five minutes later telling someone else the exact opposite. The two biggest liars are Sincere (hilariously ironic) and Kenzie, at least so far. We’re just two weeks in, anything could happen. And Casa Amor is looming.

The thing about lying on this show, though, is that while Casa Amor is always the “twist” that people are waiting for, to me the most dramatic episode of every season of Love Island USA since they introduced the feature is… MOVIE NIGHT.

Peacock is doing a theatrical viewing experience for Casa Amor this year, encouraging group watches at the cineplex when the villa gets disrupted by the location shift and the new bombshells coming in. But, in my opinion, Movie Night should be the viewing experience because this is when all the islanders have to sit down and watch back what their partners said or did or inserted when they weren’t around. It is crazy to me how they’ve somehow forgotten about all the cameras and their lies when they are doing all the lying.

Or … I dunno… maybe at this point in the age of influencers, they just don’t care anymore because they know the lying and the drama will increase viewership. Since most of them are not there for love but for fame, we may have arrived at the point where they all go in with the intention of casting themselves as the villains.

On the other end of the spectrum, though, Love Island USA is now a launchpad for reality stars from other shows who’ve been wronged by villains to build even more momentum. That was true for Ariana Madix after she was f-cked over on Vanderpump Rules, then made a guest appearance in season 5 of Love Island USA before taking over as host to rave reviews.

Similarly, Ciara Miller showed up in Fiji last week, continuing to ride a wave of popularity after she got f-cked over on Summer House, and was confirmed alongside Tefi Pessoa to be the new host of Love Island USA: Aftersun. Their chemistry was great. They brought exactly the right tone to the proceedings. And Ciara will also be on the Ariana path in the fall when she joins Dancing With the Stars. I get why everyone wants her right now – it’s not just the notoriety, she’s good at the job, she’s great on a mic, plus, like, look at her. She is stunning.

And she has Rihanna’s endorsement.

A couple of months ago there was a rumour circulating via DeuxMoi that Rihanna was trying to set up Ciara and Michael B Jordan. Then again… MBJ is liking Sol’s tweets. Spoiler alert: Sol has been dumped from the villa – but maybe Sol will end up winning, because she has MBJ’s attention! The Gossip Genie has options.

PS. Speaking of Rihanna, she and Rocky were in LA for the first time in three months yesterday on business related to that shooting incident outside their home. They left immediately afterwards.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey