“Misogyny” seems to be the defining word of this season.
Love Island has been hit with more than 3,000 complaints in relation to a moment in Casa Amor following a segment where contestants got a sneak peek at what individual contestants had been up to whilst away from their current couplings.
The hit ITV2 reality show is said to have received a total of 3,617 different complaints in the past week alone following claims of “misogyny” directed at some of the male cast, as well as “sexism” over how their female counterparts have been treated during the show.
Following the ‘Mad Movies’ section of Sunday night’s show, viewers took umbrage with how Luca Bish “blew up at his partner Gemma Owen after accusing her of “flirting” with Billy Brown, despite her insistence that she wasn’t “entertaining” his advances in any way.
Moreover, many others slammed Italian housemate Davide Sanclimenti for repeatedly branding partner Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu a “liar” for her supposed behaviour both prior to and during the Movie Night special. He’s since been criticised for starting a number of explosive arguments despite having himself kissed another contestant, Coco Lodge, in Casa Amor. Dami Hope has also faced similar backlash.
https://twitter.com/CatClarkejourno/status/1549565324957196289?s=20&t=ktz3M4yG7IyM_dnCTK3MdQ
Was made to watch an episode of @LoveIsland this evening after I lost a bet. I’m horrified! Why has this show allowed their to be bullying and misogynist behaviour from Dami and Luca! Outrageous! Get them off TV #LoveIsland
— JT (@JTWH2016) July 19, 2022
Danica just spit facts to the girls and is literally the ONLY girl that has called a boy out on their “excusable behaviour”. Just give her the £50k already cause i’m done with seeing misogny, gaslighting and dismissive controlling behaviour from these “boys”. #loveisland
— M A J I D (@Majid_K_1994) July 19, 2022
luca is such a misogynist. He is happy to bully tasha about how she's acted in the past but won't recognise how shitty andrew was in casa. idc that they r "boyz" he should just admit his deep rooted hatred for women and leave. #LoveIsland
— mitski (@mitski198305231) July 20, 2022
deji is the only guy that doesn’t seem like a raging misogynist and that’s probably just because he’s barley had any screen time i’m gonna throw up i hate love island
— alex :p (@alexporterr) July 20, 2022
The above social media complaints were just a taster of the kind of complaints lodged in the past week – 3,617 and counting, to be exact – but we’d be here all night if we went through all of them.
Bish’s own family even took to his Instagram story to apologise for his behaviour:
Domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid are in discussion with the ITV show over concerns surrounding the “misogynistic and controlling behaviour” by several of the men on the show.
They also say there has been strong communication about how to address and improve these issues moving forward following this flood of complaints.
It's a really positive move for us to be in discussion with the team at @LoveIsland about how we can work together moving forward, to address the issues and concerns raised. Thank you to our followers on Twitter for reaching out to us about this. #EndAbuseTogether
— Women's Aid (@womensaid) July 18, 2022
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