When Black reality TV stars become villains, does racism follow? ‘Love Island’ stars Titi and KC have some thoughts
TheGrio...
“Love Island USA” stars KC and Titi open up about how they’ve been managing the online backlash since their season wrapped.
When Tierra “Titi” Davis and Kuman “KC” Chandler stepped out of the “Love Island USA” villa hand-in-hand after season 8 wrapped, they thought some of their most challenging days socially were behind them. They had no clue they were walking straight into a world that had already decided they were villains.
“I kind of already had the feeling it was gonna be lovers, and it’s gonna be haters,” Chandler said during a recent episode of the couple’s new podcast.
They weren’t just receiving the kind of hate that often comes with reality TV fame. The backlash the couple faced after Chandler left his original pairing to pursue a relationship with Titi quickly took on an anti-Black tone.
Now, on a podcast the two have just launched, the couple is opening up about what happened after filming ended. The reality TV stars describe the relentless cyberbullying they say has followed them off the show, from racist memes and comments about Davis’s braids to stereotypes about where they’re from and demeaning gorilla jokes they say have crossed the line into racism.
“I don’t feel like we weren’t liked because we were a Black couple,” Davis explained. “I feel people are so comfortable disrespecting us because we are a Black couple, because we are Black people.”
What they have experienced goes far beyond one season of “Love Island USA.” Reality television has always had heroes and villains, but Davis and Chandler’s experience echoes a pattern many Black reality TV stars have endured for years. One where, once a Black contestant becomes unpopular, criticism comes baked with harmful stereotypes, dehumanizing jokes, and a racist online pile-on.
During the latest season of “Love Island USA,” which dropped a fresh crop of 20-somethings into a vibrantly decorated villa in Fiji to compete in horny, high-stakes challenges in hopes of finding love and winning $100,000, Chandler quickly became one of the most talked-about contestants online as his relationship with his first main match, Aniyah Harvey, deepened and began to unravel.
Throughout their time together, Harvey repeatedly questioned whether his feelings were genuine. Chandler consistently reassured her they were, though from her perspective, his actions rarely matched his words. At the same time, several scenes showed Chandler speaking more candidly with the other men about his doubts, at times appearing to disparage Harvey behind her back.
Then came Casa Amor, the show’s signature twist that separates established couples and introduces a new group of potential matches. There, Chandler hit it off with newcomer Davis and ultimately chose to end his relationship with Harvey, bringing Davis back to the main villa to begin a new relationship together.
The backlash Chandler was already receiving reached a fever pitch after the dramatic Casa Amor recoupling around the fire pit, a moment he later said left him depressed for days. Outside the villa, the narrative had already taken hold. Chandler had become one of the season’s villains, and before long, Davis had too.
When it comes to reality TV, every fan seems to have a favorite and a villain. Disliking contestants or cast members comes with the territory. But according to Davis and Chandler, once they became unpopular, the conversation shifted from their behavior on the show to attacks rooted in race, appearance and harmful stereotypes.
What’s worse, they say, is that brands and large social media accounts amplified many of those jokes, helping normalize them and encouraging even more people to join the pile-on.
“The fact that these million-dollar companies are so comfortable disrespecting us on the internet, it opens the door for everyone else to do so,” Davis noted.
They’re far from the only ones. Taylor Hale, who starred on and won season 24 of “Big Brother” in 2022, endured weeks of ostracism and vilification from fellow houseguests and viewers before ultimately becoming the franchise’s first Black woman winner.
Reality TV fans may also remember Rachel Lindsay, the first Black lead of “The Bachelorette” in 2017, and the scrutiny she endured throughout her groundbreaking season. Much of the backlash she received was steeped in racism and anti-Blackness, and she has since become one of the industry’s most outspoken voices calling it out. Meanwhile, former “Real Housewives of Potomac” star Candiace Dillard Bassett has also spoken candidly about the way racism and colorism have played out in both cast dynamics and the way viewers respond to conflict on the show.
It’s not just Black women either. Matt James, the first Black lead of “The Bachelor,” faced intense scrutiny during and after his season. Fans of “The Traitors” have also repeatedly questioned whether unconscious bias influences who becomes an early target, noting that Black and queer contestants often find themselves under suspicion long before they’ve done anything to really warrant it. The examples abound.
Davis and Chandler also weren’t the only contestants from their season to endure relentless and racist online criticism. Harvey, too, has been picked apart and demeaned by viewers since the very beginning. Additionally, Sol Dean, who joined their season later in the game as a bombshell, has spoken out about feeling vilified from the start by all sides of the villa, only to return home to intense backlash along both colorist and racist themes at times.
For Davis, though, the most painful part wasn’t the racism from strangers. It was, as she put it, “to see my own people on the hate train.” She said seeing Black women, maybe unconsciously navigating their own internalized racism, creating memes, and joining the pile-on hurt more than racist comments from anyone else.
“Like America and the whole world’s always going to be racist, especially towards you know our people, and that’s unfortunate,” she noted. “But I feel like the most disheartening part about it all was to see my own people on the hate train, and to see my own people making memes about me.”
“I feel like that bothered me more because I love my people, and I’m proud. I’m a proud Black American,” she continued. “I just feel like we need to stick together … to see so many Black women, women who look just like me, and my aunties, my sister, my mom, like to see Black women pick up their phone and to talk about how much they hate Titi, another black woman who they don’t know.”
Reality television has always depended on heroes and villains to keep audiences invested and to tell compelling stories. Davis and Chandler’s experience, however, may show just yet another example of how much a villain edit can cost for Black contestants.
The couple has managed to weather the storm on the strength of each other. Thankfully, it also hasn’t been all hate. Both stars said that among the intense cyberbullying they’ve seen the love. In particular, Chandler shouted out a recent edit he saw that used him calling himself “King Casa” during the show as a voiceover to LeBron James dunking.
“That’s all I wanted in life was a LeBron edit,” he teased. “So like the fact that I got it now and it’s out there forever, like that s—t good.”