Love Island USA bombshell Cierra Ortega is speaking out after departing season seven of Peacock‘s hit reality series per week before the finale.
“Now that I’ve been back within the U.S. for about 48 hours and I’ve had the prospect to process, I now feel like I’m at an area where I can discuss this without being highly emotional because I’m not the victim in this case,” she began in a greater than four-minute video posted on Instagram.
Through the July 6 episode, the show’s narrator, Iain Stirling, announced that Ortega had “left the villa as a result of a private situation,” leaving Nic Vansteenberg, who she had been in a pair with during most of her time within the villa, “officially single.”
No other details regarding Ortega’s abrupt exit from the show were shared; nonetheless, it got here amid backlash after a social media post from her resurfaced, showing her using a racial slur. Love Island USA fans had been calling for her removal from the show as a result of the offensive post.
Ortega continued in her video, “While I used to be within the Villa, there have been some posts that resurfaced from my past where I used to be very naively using an incredibly offensive and derogatory term. And before I get into the main points, I would like to first start by addressing not only anyone that I even have hurt or deeply offended, but most significantly, all the Asian community. I’m deeply, truly, truthfully, so sorry. I had no concept that the word held as much pain, as much harm, and got here with the history that it did, or I never would have used it. I had no sick intention once I was using it, but that’s absolutely no excuse because intent doesn’t excuse ignorance. It just doesn’t. And I just need you to know that I’m so sorry, but this shouldn’t be an apology video. That is an accountability video.”
“I believe at once there are tons of things floating around, different screenshots with different time stamps and fueling this narrative that I type of doubled down once people tried to correct me and was like, ‘Oh, like I don’t know, I’m still gonna use it,’ but that was not the case,” she said within the lengthy video. “The reality is that in that moment, the lesson was learned, the word was removed and it was a real learning moment for me and I believe since that moment I’ve done a lot growing as a person, and I’ve tried my best to teach others who is perhaps by chance holding space for a lot of these words that might be offensive of their vocabulary.”
Ortega added that she “completely agrees with the network’s decision to remove me from the Villa. I believe that that is something that deserved punishment, and the punishment has absolutely been received needless to say.”
She also addressed the net hate she’s received after the racial posts resurfaced, noting that her “family doesn’t feel protected in their very own home” and that she’s been receiving death threats.
“There’s no must fight hate with hate,” Ortega said within the video. “I don’t think that that’s justice, and if you desire to know that you just are heard and that I’m sorry and that I’ll move in another way, I promise you that’s what is going to occur.”
“All I can ask for is even in case you won’t give me forgiveness, in case you can just allow me to grow with grace and hopefully, as a substitute of sitting here and attempting to persuade you that I’m this amazing one that spreads light on the planet and celebrates cultures and dynamics and backgrounds, then at some point you may see that from me,” she concluded. “I’m deeply sorry again, and I thank anyone who’s listening.”
Earlier within the season, contestant Yulissa Escobar was also faraway from the Peacock series after clips of her using racial slurs resurfaced online. Following her departure, she shared in an announcement, “First, I would like to apologize for using a word I had no right in using. Podcast clips from years ago have recently resurfaced, and I would like to handle it directly. In those clips, I used a word I never should’ve used, a racial slur. I used it ignorantly, not fully understanding the load, history, or pain behind it. I wasn’t attempting to be offensive or harmful, but I recognize now that intention doesn’t excuse impact. And the impact of that word is real. It’s tied to generations of trauma, and it shouldn’t be mine to make use of.”
Love Island USA season seven is currently streaming on Peacock, with Ariana Madix returning as host. The present remaining Islanders as of Wednesday night include Chelley and Ace, Huda and Chris, Olandria and Nic, Amaya and Bryan and Iris and Pepe.