Why viewers shouldn’t assume Love Island’s Hugo is gay – regardless of what happens in the villa

It’s fair to say that Hugo Hammond hasn’t had the smoothest journey in the Love Island villa. While the other boys like Jake Cornish and Liam Reardon have formed strong romantic connections with Liberty Poole and Millie Court respectively (well, until Casa Amor in the case of the latter), the former PE teacher from Hampshire has tried and failed to find a spark with a string of women.

After almost three weeks of being in friendship couples, viewers were rooting for Hugo to find love and things began looking up for him when bombshells AJ Bunker and Georgia Townend entered the villa with their eggs firmly all in his basket. AJ later chose to couple up with Hugo, only for him to end things just days later as he suggested she couple up with Danny Bibby instead.

Georgia didn’t even get that far as he shut down the idea of a romance between them pretty much straight away after their first chat and later opted to be in a friendship couple with Chloe Burrows instead.

It was at this point that viewers began to question why Hugo was pushing away potential love interests. Is he too picky? Is he just there for a free holiday? Or, as an increasing number of online commenters have begun to ask, is he gay? In fact, Google searches for ‘Hugo Love Island gay’ are up by over 400%.

Speculation about Hugo’s sexuality is rife online, with many viewers taking to Twitter to comment. “Hugo’s gay and no one can change my mind,” wrote one social media user recently.

“Hugo you’re the f--king problem. You’re gay and we all know it,” added another, while a third remarked, “Hugo is GAY that’s the only answer.”

The rumours were only fuelled when pictures of Hugo embracing two male acquaintances surfaced online, with social media users rushing to declare that their theories were proven right. It later came to light that one of the men in the photo was in fact Hugo’s brother.

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Regardless of whatever Hugo’s sexuality is – and it’s important to clarify that he has never commented on the matter and doesn't have to – it’s hard to separate from these tweets from the homophobia deeply engrained in society, even in 2021.

Not only does it seem that some viewers are keen to catch Hugo out in a ‘gotcha’ moment, but it’s also unfair to make such sweeping assumptions about someone based on a heavily edited hour of television - especially when they haven’t publicly labelled their sexuality themselves.

We only have to look at the comments of popstar Shawn Mendes to see how damaging speculation about someone’s sexuality can be for their mental health. “Everyone's been calling me gay since I was 15 years old. I'm not gay and I'm like, 'What does that mean?' I had these problems with the way my voice sounded. I'm like, 'How do I sit?' I'm always first to cross my legs and sit with a position of this feminine style and I really suffered with that sh-t,” he said on the Armchair Expert podcast.

“You want to say, 'I'm not gay but it'd be fine if I was gay - but also there's nothing wrong with being gay but I'm not.' You don't really know how to respond to the situation.”

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Plus, by rushing to label Hugo as gay, Love Island fans are completely erasing the fact that bisexual men exist. From the lack of representation in mainstream media to the underlying assumptions made about bi men (that they’re no longer attractive to women or that bisexuality is simply a stepping stone), biphobia is real and even prevalent within the LBTQ+ community.

Hugo is now in a couple with Casa Amor bombshell Amy Day and they find themselves at risk of being dumped after coming in the bottom three of a public vote, with some fans accusing them of “faking” their romance in order to stay in the competition.

Regardless of whether Hugo is successful in finding love in the villa or not, assuming it’s because of his sexuality is wrong and labelling him as gay is frankly a lazy excuse for his lack of a romantic connection with the female Islanders.