- Vasana Montgomery was removed from Love Island USA season 8 Villa on May 28 after videos surfaced showing her allegedly using racial slurs.
- Fans on Reddit theorized that Gabriel Vasconcelos’ role in the season premiere may have been demoted from original islander to Bombshell following Vasana’s controversial exit.
- A teaser video for the premiere episode confirmed this theory.
Love Island USA season 8 can’t come soon enough, and a ton of drama has already gone down before the premiere has even hit our screens.
On May 28, Vasana Montgomery was removed from the Villa after videos of her using racial slurs surfaced online. Per Us Weekly, she “purportedly sings along to a song that includes the slur” in one of the videos, and also allegedly “says ‘knock knock, n*****’ while playing an arcade game” in a second video. Fans were ultimately outraged that Peacock managed to cast another person with a reportedly racist and problematic past and called for her removal from the reality show.
Because of this, the Villa was short one Islander in the season premiere, but they found a solution: demoting Gabriel Vasconcelos from OG Islander to Bombshell…and this first-look video proves it.
Notice the tattoos on that incoming male Bombshell?
Eagle-eyed fans on Reddit first started theorizing about this possibility in the wake of Vasana’s scandalous exit.
“We never got Gabriel’s intro video yesterday like we got the rest of the cast so I’m assuming that means Gabriel will come in as a bombshell instead?” the original poster on Reddit wrote, referencing each islander’s intro clip on the show’s official Instagram. They continued, “This would make sense due to Vasana being removed so they can even out the number of men and women for coupling up Day 1. I hope to see him soon because he was the best looking one to me.”
Another person pointed out that this season of the hit reality series had brought in more OGs than usual with 12 islanders, including Vasana. While that was likely the case, someone else pointed out that “All eleven islanders in the app, including Gabriel, say ‘entered the villa day 1.’”
But apparently, Gabriel will be entering on day one—alongside another mystery Bombshell (though the internet has a theory about her identity, too…).
Can’t wait until the highly anticipated follow-up to last summer’s shenanigans in the infamous Fiji Villa hits our screens tonight!
