Love Island’s Sharon Gaffkahas spoken out about how important conversations about race and sexuality were cut from the final edit of episodes.
Speaking to Insider, Sharon revealed that “a lot of candid” chats she had about race were cut from the show.
"I do remember one part of the show that never got aired was Kaz and I sat on swings with some of the lads and explained how hard it is to date in modern dating and using dating apps as an ethnic minority woman."
She continued, "Kaz and I come from those ethnicities that are very hyper-sexualized in modern dating."
"Actually it would have done a lot of good [to air the discussion] because I feel like a lot of women who are from different races do have the same problems," she added, "for me especially I was wondering, 'Am I singled out in this? Am I alone in this? Has anyone else experienced the same thing as me or am I being targeted?'"
We couldn’t agree more, especially as the subject of diversity has been the centre of many Love Island debates through the years, having like-minded diverse Islanders like Kaz Kamwi and Sharon speaking about subjects that affect them in the real world (and not in the Love Island bubble) surely makes them even more relatable and engaging? Personally, I would love to watch the chat that Sharon has spoken about and I'm sure other viewers would love that too.
Sharon opened up about having threesomes with men and women during her time in the villa too, telling her fellow islanders during a challenge, “Well I don’t know if I’m supposed to find out if I like girls and boys if I don’t find out for myself?”
However, she later admitted that she had openly spoken with Faye Winter about “exploring” her bisexuality in the villa, but you guessed it, those scenes were not aired.
She told Metro, “I had a conversation with Faye about it and she asked: ‘Are you bisexual?’
“And I said: ‘It’s something I’ve explored but I’ve never been in a relationship with a woman.'”
“A lot of the conversations I had were about modern dating on the show were never aired,” she added, “but I was very open about sexuality and being a mixed-race woman in modern dating.”
CHECK OUT Love Island 2021 cast's first ever Instagram photos
Love Island 2021's first Instagram posts slider
1 of 16Chloe Burrows
Chloe may have caught all the boys' attentions as evidenced in a recent explosive episode, but you can see she's always been a stunner from this uni halls pic taken way back in 2015.
2 of 16Faye Winter
Faye has certainly nailed this classic Instapose in this snap from 2019 - the hair, tan and Adidas bodysuit are all on point and a sign of things to come.
3 of 16Brad McClellan
A quick glance over Brad's insta and it's clear he uses it primarily to document his fitness journey. This snap from 2017 is from before it all began.
4 of 16Kaz Kamwi
Kaz was already a fashion blogger before she entered the Love Island villa, and so her first photo is appropriately professional looking (boo).
5 of 16Jake Cornish
Finally, a properly old photo! You can tell that Jake was already going to the gym when this photo was taken with a mate back in 2013.
6 of 16love-island-contestants-first-instagrams
PS. Enjoy this bonus pic of baby Jake with none other than footballer Wayne Rooney.
7 of 16Hugo Hammond
When he was a teenager, Hugo played Cricket for England's Physical Disability team.
8 of 16Hugo Hammond
PS. Baby Hugo for your viewing pleasure x
9 of 16Aaron Francis
Like Kaz, Aaron was already trying his hand as an influencer before he signed up to Love Island and so most of his photos are pretty glossy, but scroll down far enough and we found this photo of him seemingly winning an arm wrestle against Somoan Rugby Union player Many Tuilangi.
10 of 16Toby Aromolaran
Toby's not giving anything away with this sultry selfie from 2018, other than perhaps that he's heading off on his holidays, judging by his passport and boarding pass. He doesn't look that excited about it though, does he?
11 of 16Sharon Gaffka
In case you missed it, Sharon used to compete in beauty pageants and was Miss UK 2018. Here she is from the Galaxy pageant that same year.
12 of 16Liberty Poole
It looks like Liberty has always been a big fan of the finer things in life - as well as a blonde hair extension or two - judging from this snap with a pal from 2019.
13 of 16Liam Reardon
Viewers couldn't believe that Liam was only 21 when he entered the villa, but here's proof that Liam looked 30 way back in 2018 (regular teenaged boy for reference).
14 of 16Rachel Finni
This photo of Rach taken on a night out was posted in 2017 but captioned, "2 Years Ago ud83dude2b#CanILookLikeThisAgainPlease", so we can assume it's from way back in 2015.
15 of 16Millie Court
Proving she's always been a fan of posing up a storm in a bikini, we're majorly jeal of Millie's 2018 holiday to Cannes. Ahh, holidays - remember those?
16 of 16Lucinda Strafford
Right, we can't actually believe this 2018 photo of bombshell Lucinda - have Love Island checked her I.D.? Is she old enough to be on the show?
WATCH Brad McClelland and Sharon Gaffka reveal Liam was TOLD OFF by producers | Love Island Secrets
Having like-minded and diverse Islanders like Sharon and Kaz speaking about subjects that affect them in the real world (and not in the Love Island bubble) surely makes them even more relatable and engaging?
The ITV2 show is only an hour long, so it’s understandable that producers must be decisive about what moments they want to air and are mindful about what makes ‘good telly’, but a few episodes of this year’s season have been labelled "boring" by viewers. Instead of airing important cultural conversations, we’ve watched the girls having a 15-minute long chat about graduating (AKA having sex) and a segment about Liberty losing her bracelet.
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Love Island’s target audience range from 16 up until 34, which is a phenomenally huge demographic. If chats about sexuality and race – which are thankfully happening a lot more in recent years - were aired at 9pm on the biggest reality show of the year, think about how much of a difference that could make.
Producers have previously spoken out about how they come to a decision about what to include in the final cut, a Love Island spokesperson toldDigital Spyin 2018 that they just make the final cut to represent what happens over a 24-hour period.
The spokesperson said: “The opinions they have, decisions they make and the relationships formed are completely within the control of the Islanders themselves.
“It is always our intention to produce a show that is a fair and accurate representation of life in the villa.”