There are some things you can never unsee — just ask Nic Vansteenberghe’s family. In the Love Island USA episode that premiered on Friday, Nic’s mother and sister chided him for having sex with ex-partner Cierra Ortega with other contestants nearby.
“We’ve seen you in the sheets,” Nic’s sister revealed. “We’ve caught the night cameras.”
Nic’s mom, meanwhile, gave the 24-year-old Floridian a disappointed look. “Nicolas,” she said. “In public like that?”
Visibly uncomfortable, Nic tried claiming his X-rated action “wasn’t in public, technically.”
But his sister said she “saw eyes open,” probably referring to other people still awake in the villa at the time of Nic’s hookups.
“We move on from that,” Nic told his family, trying to change the subject.
Despite the scolding, Nic was thrilled to have his mom and sister visit the villa.
“I’ve had so many days where, like, it’s been low times, and I think about my parents and my mom and my sister and my dad,” he said in a confessional in that episode. “I just have a family who I’m so grateful for and who loves me no matter what and lets me be me. And it’s such an amazing feeling.”
Not having such an amazing feeling is Cierra, who got booted from the villa “due to personal reasons” in the July 6 episode. As it turned out, Cierra had used racist language in an Instagram video that social media users had discovered and circulated. In another Instagram upload, which she posted on July 9, Cierra apologized for uttering an “incredibly offensive and derogatory term” in the previous video.
“I want to first start by addressing not just anyone that I have hurt or deeply offended, but most importantly, the entire Asian community,” she said. “I am deeply, truly, honestly so sorry. I had no idea that the word held as much pain, as much harm, and came with the history that it did, or I never would have used it.”
Cierra’s exit came a month after Yulissa Escobar left the villa under similar circumstances. Yulissa later apologized on Instagram for “using a word [she] had no right in using.”
Love Island USA, Season 7, Every Night Except Wednesdays, 9/8c, Peacock