<\/p>\n
A Love Island USA <\/em>cast member has been dismissed from the reality dating show just days ahead of its eighth season premiere following resurfaced videos in which the contestant used a racial slur.<\/p>\n Vasana Montgomery, of Beaverton, Oregon, will no longer feature on the series, Deadline can confirm. A Peacock spokesperson notes that videos of the incident, in which the 25-year-old Montgomery uses the N-word, appear to be privately owned and were not shared publicly until following her announcement, and as such were inaccessible to vet prior to her ousting.<\/p>\n More from Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n This marks the second year in a row that the popular American format of the U.K. original has had to let go of a contestant for racist comments. In June 2025, Yulissa Escobar left the villa a day following the Season 7 premiere amid backlash for a clip in which she uttered the N-word repeatedly<\/a>. Her exit was addressed with a plain statement halfway through the second episode of the dating competition series last year. (Escobar\u00a0issued an apology after her departure<\/a>, but has since gone on social media downplaying the severity of her actions.)<\/p>\n A month afterward featured an unfortunate d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu moment as fellow Season 7 islander Cierra Ortega was likewise removed from the series<\/a> after using an offensive racial slur against Asians. Narrator\u00a0Iain Stirling<\/a> addressed the moment in Episode 30, saying Ortega had left \u201cdue to a personal situation.\u201d Days afterward, Ortega also released a statement; however, the erstwhile contestant stopped short of calling it an \u201capology video.\u201d She said: \u201cThis is an accountability video. I do want to hold my hands up and say that I take accountability for using the word, but I do want it to be known that I genuinely had no idea that it was a slur. I had no idea of its meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n Just a few days ago, the Love Island USA<\/em> Instagram page posted a PSA urging viewers to \u201ckeep it kind, keep it positive\u201d<\/a> as the cast prepares its debut on the Ariana Madix-hosted spinoff.<\/p>\n The first islanders<\/a> (now excluding Montgomery) set to enter the villa are:\u00a0Aniya Harvey<\/strong>\u00a0(Tyrone, Georgia),\u00a0Beatriz Hatz<\/strong>\u00a0(San Diego, California),\u00a0Bryce Dettloff<\/strong>\u00a0(Los Angeles, California),\u00a0Gabriel Vasconcelos<\/strong>\u00a0(Miami, Florida),\u00a0KC Chandler<\/strong>\u00a0(Fresno, California),\u00a0Kenzie Annis (<\/strong>Kennesaw, Georgia),\u00a0Melanie Moreno<\/strong>\u00a0(Los Angeles, California),\u00a0Sean Reifel<\/strong>\u00a0(Easton, Pennsylvania),\u00a0Sincere Rhea<\/strong>\u00a0(Cape May, New Jersey),\u00a0Trinity Tatum<\/strong>\u00a0(Newport News, Virginia) and\u00a0Zach Georgiou<\/strong>\u00a0(Birmingham, England).<\/p>\n Love Island USA<\/em>\u00a0is produced by ITV America, in association with Lifted Entertainment and Motion Entertainment, a WPP Media Company and distributed by ITV Studios. David George, Adam Sher, Jordana Hochman, Bernie Schaeffer, Ben Thursby-Palmer, James Barker, Blake Garrett, Courtney Rosenthal, Sophie Brown, Richard Cowles, Mike Spencer, Tom Gould, Ali Hill and Martin Oxley executive produce the series.<\/p>\n Season 8, which will follow up a record-breaking Season 7<\/a>, premieres June 2 at 9 p.m. ET and 6 p.m. PT, with new episodes dropping daily during premiere week except for Wednesdays thereafter.<\/p>\n Best of Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Love Island USA cast member has been dismissed from the reality dating show just days ahead of its eighth season premiere following resurfaced videos in which the contestant used a racial slur. Vasana Montgomery, of Beaverton, Oregon, will no longer feature on the series, Deadline can confirm. A Peacock spokesperson notes that videos of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2439239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[349995,30781,340926,478738,478739],"class_list":["post-2439238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-cierra-ortega","tag-love-island","tag-season-premiere","tag-vasana-montgomery","tag-yulissa-escobar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/\u2018Love-Island-USA-Cast-Member-Dismissed-Ahead-Of-Season-8.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2439240,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439238\/revisions\/2439240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2439239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}