Reality TV Casting Director
‘Love Island USA’ Production Deserves Blame
For Vetting Blunders
Published
A casting director is calling out the producers of “Love Island USA” for not doing their due diligence when casting not one, but two contestants who’ve been exposed for their past racist comments … the casting pro says it’s shocking the show hasn’t learned from reality TV history.
It’s no secret “Love Island USA” dropped the ball on background checks this season — Cierra Ortega and Yulissa Escobar each got the boot for their previous racist commentary — and fans are furious these two women were platformed without the show doing proper research.
But, the talent recruiters themselves may not be the department that deserves the blame in this case … ’cause our source defends the casting community — saying this sort of background check should’ve been vetted by production — and doesn’t understand how something like this gets missed.
Joy Tenenberg — current Unscripted Casting Director and former Development Casting Producer for British network ITV, which produces “Love Island USA” — tells us that in her experience, this is a huge miss for production.
JT says the process for vetting candidates — like those wishing to be the next ‘Love Island’ bombshell — is like 15,000 steps long … the scrutiny is intense.
Instagram / @cierra.ortega
In her “accountability video,” Cierra says she agrees with production’s decision to remove her from the show. Joy dissects Ortega’s case … she says the Asian slur post would not have shown up in a background check, because it was deleted long ago … but in this case, someone else had been holding on to a screenshot, and resurfaced it — that kind of thing can’t be predicted or prevented.
Tenenberg tells us, in her experience, they’d rely on the candidate to bring up anything in their past that could potentially pop up, so they’d have a chance warn production know before they move on to next steps.
So if a racist post from a year ago resurfaced, that would be on the casting department to find, but if it’s something from 15 years ago … that’s on production and legal to find and deal with.
Tenenberg says similar scandals have plagued reality TV for years — like when ‘Big Brother 25’ contestant Luke Valentine got kicked out of the house after casually dropping the N-word in the middle of a conversation with other houseguests.
In production’s defense, Joy mentions that because of the current state of Hollywood, and how many people have lost their jobs since the pandemic, it could be possible that the ‘Love Island’ production team was small, and rushed … and when you’re rushed, mistakes happen.
