‘Love Island USA’ Contestant Cierra Ortega Apologizes for Using Racial Slur
Love Island USA contestant Cierra Ortega has addressed her removal from the hit dating reality show.
A week before the finale, Ortega was dropped from Season Seven after the surfacing of social media posts from 2015 and 2020 in which she used a racial slur toward the Asian community. In a post shared on Wednesday, Ortega apologized for her behavior and said, “This is not an apology video; this is an accountability video.”
In a four-minute video posted to Instagram, Ortega said now that she has had the “chance to process” what happened, she is able to speak about the incident “without being highly emotional because I am not the victim in this situation.”
“While I was in the villa, there were some posts that resurfaced from my past where I was very naively using an incredibly offensive and derogatory term,” she said. “And before I get into the details, I want to first start by addressing not just anyone that I have hurt or deeply offended, but most importantly, the entire Asian community. I am deeply, truly, honestly so sorry. I had no idea that the word held as much pain as much harm, and came with the history that it did or I never would have used it.”
Ortega said that she “had no idea of its meaning” until she “made the public story post in 2024 when a follower of mine reached out to correct me and let me know that what I was saying was incredibly hurtful.” After the follower reached out, Ortega said she “immediately deleted the post” and “was apologetic.”
“The truth is that in that moment, the lesson was learned, the word was removed and it was a true learning moment for me and I think since that moment I’ve done so much growing as an individual, and I’ve tried my best to educate others who might be accidentally holding space for these types of words that could be offensive in their vocabulary,” she added.
The former contest also claimed that following the backlash, her family “had ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] called on them,” has received death threats, and no longer “feel safe in their own home.”
“There’s no need to fight hate with hate. I don’t think that that’s justice,” said Ortega.
Shortly after her removal from the villa, her parents posted a statement to her Instagram account pleading for “compassion, for patience, for basic human decency” from the show’s viewer base.
“As Cierra’s parents, this has been one of the most painful weeks of our lives,” they wrote. “We’re not here to justify or ignore what’s surfaced. We understand why people are upset, and we know accountability matters. But what’s happening online right now has gone far beyond that. The threats. The cruel messages. The attacks on her family, her friends, even her supporters, it’s heartbreaking. It’s uncalled for. And no one deserves that kind of hate, no matter what mistake they’ve made.”