The reboot of Britain’s ‘Love Island’ promised to be the dating show for our self-made, self-aware era. After a series of high-profile suicides, including that of former host Caroline Flack, a darker reality set in.
I. Jain disputes that characterization, but Flack, a former X-Factor host who’d dated the two most famous Harrys in England, Prince and Styles, embodied the reality show’s contradictions: dystopian and romantic, intimate and viewed by millions, highly produced in a way that fosters genuine human feelings.
On Love Island season two, the model and former Miss Great Britain was partnered with Tom Powell before coupling with Katie Salmon in the show’s first same-sex pairing. Though Gradon was a sensitive presence in the villa, frequently brought to tears by the distress of her castmates, the move was viewed as cynical gameplay by some viewers, who started aggressively attacking Gradon online. “No one anticipated success,” Gradon said in March 2018, nearly two years after her departure.