Love Island USA Winner Amaya Accused of Being Colorist After Season 6 Kenny’s Racist Allegations Surface
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Another Love Island USA contestant’s social media presence has been going viral. Since winning Season 7, many netizens accused Amaya Espinal of being racist and colorist years before her Love Island debut.
Amaya is a 25-year-old from New York City, New York, who joined Love Island USA Season 7 as a bombshell on Day 5. She coupled up with Bryan Arenales, a 27-year-old from Boston, Massachusetts and together, they went on and won the Peacock dating show and left $100,000 richer. Amaya amassed a large following on the show and calls her fans “papayas” after her nickname, Amaya Papaya.
What were Amaya’s colorist posts?
In a post on X, a Love Island USA fan posted screenshots of Amaya allegedly reposting a Facebook post of a meme describing people’s different skin tones with offensive stereotypes associated with it. She reposted the post in 2014 when she was 14 or 15 years old. She also allegedly liked and reposted TikToks made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump, and Tucker Carlson.
Amaya is of Dominican and German descent, according to a TikTok video she shared in 2023 of her in the Netherlands. “Just a dominican girl and german girl in Amsterdam,” she captioned a video of her on a night out.
One TikTok user pointed out the similarities between her past colorist behavior and how she treated dark-skin people on Love Island. “We fast forward to her being on Love Island— how she talked to a dark-skinned Black Haitian woman, even though she’s Dominican. And how she treated a Black man when he had boundaries,” she said. “Does Amaya still think like this? I won’t say it. I don’t have any proof.” The same user made a follow-up post, “That girl was acting like she had internalized racism that she was going to perpetuate. She called a Black man a ‘player’ for being open and honest.”
As of writing, Amaya has not responded to the claims. Love Island USA fans have spoken out about Amaya’s behavior. One person posted on X, “ppl need to stop excusing amaya bc she was 14/15. i can PROMISE you i wasn’t writing racist or colourist things at that age bc i actually respect all human beings regardless of skin colour. this is weird asf on her part.”
The news comes right after Season 6 contestant Kenny Rodriguez was accused of being racist. A source told Deuxmoi that the reason behind JaNa and Kenny’s breakup was that JaNa found texts on Kenny’s phone in which he allegedly called her racist names and detailed his plan to stay with her for clout and money. “Allegedly the tea on the breakup is that she found texts on Kenny’s phone about his plan to stay with her for business/clout, texts with friends calling her r*c*s* names which aligns with both Leah and Serena’s statements calling him a clout chaser and racist.”
Contestants from Love Island USA Season 7 were also booted from the villa due to past racist remarks. On the July 6 episode of Love Island USA, Iain Stirling announced that Cierra Ortega would be leaving the villa due to “a personal situation” and it was revealed that she used a slur against the Asian population. Yulissa left the villa only two days While Love Island USA didn’t explain why Yulissa exited the series, fans speculate that it was because of a resurfaced video of Yulissa using the N-word in a past podcast interview.
