The Curse of Love Island review – death is more complicated than this article | Television

Mein the summer of 2015, ITV revived its 00s Celebrity Love Island, a show best remembered as an alcoholic, Big Brother competitor. Her new, glamorous, public Love Island was a slow-burner at first, but by 2017 it was one of the biggest hits on British TV. Although it is one of the hottest things on ITV, the viewing figures are very low, with 600,000 people preparing for its launch in 2026. Interests have changed, but the fact that the three people who were connected to the show – the former contestants Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon, and Caroline Flack, the presenter of the five-part series – took their own lives, may have made viewers wary.

Timed to coincide with the end of the latest series of Love Island on Monday, Prime Video has released two episodes about the apparent “curse” that plagues the show. It begins with former contestant Anton Danyluk, who appeared on the show in 2019, declaring that “there is no longer a distance than the summer you are planning on Love Island”. But the descent into the Mallorcan house of the show was not so high for some. Luis Morrison – a 2015 Islander – says it feels “disgusting” and “disgraceful” to watch the show. “Everybody was having sex with other things,” he says. Malin Andersson, a contestant in 2016, says that, in retrospect, the show feels “too dangerous… high and artificial”. Watching the video of him coming to the house to meet his friend, Terry, Andersson says there was a big confusion for the programmers: “The producers are arguing with people who can hear deep things!”

At this point, it’s not surprising; These are all criticisms that could have been leveled at Celebrity Love Island in 2005, or any other dating show. But towards the end of the first and second episodes, things get dark. Steven Douglass – a close friend of Gradon’s – talks about the “joy of his life” before the incident, and the “confusion” that disappeared after being in the public eye and the constant abuse. Thalassitis was given the nickname “Muggy Mike” because of his flamboyant behavior. Former Big Brother psychologist Linda Papadopoulos says here that the words were derogatory: “You’re confounding a multi-faceted person into a sound word.” Gradon died in 2018, Thalassitis in 2019. There was, says journalist Caroline Frost, a “creative pattern” around Love Island.

The problem, of course, is that such deaths are much more difficult, and much more difficult than The Curse of Love Island is equipped to deal with. Papadopoulos says: “This is not an attempt to point to a show, or a company, or a person. However, most of the articles focus on the program instead of focusing on the internet, financial problems, family problems, existing psychological problems, relationship problems, the media coverage, or the influence of the celebrity at the same time. Marcel Somerville, who appeared in 2017, said: “If the attention given to the contestants was given back then, It would have helped Mike.” Except that the amount of care that the Love Island contestants received – support, 14 months of contact, and advice on finances, social media and adjusting to their new lives – only came about because of the difficulties. We can ask if more could have been done earlier, but we’ll never know if it would have changed. Dave Read, who managed many of the former islanders, including Thalassitis, says the press has found “very wrong” when it comes to fixing the direct line between the show and his death.

Danyluk’s unflinching testimony, based on two events on the show, is the program’s saving grace. As reported in the press in 2024, he became an alcoholic and drug addict after Love Island, and attempted suicide. Incidentally, after he returns to Love Island: All Stars in 2024, unable to shake the feeling that he had a lot of distance left in him, he wants to “close the chapter of my life”. It was an event that, he says, was “more produced” than the first time. There was also more support for the competitors again, but the increased care work was, as they say, reduced by the producers which caused events that “caused confusion on the Internet”. He said: “I would never do reality TV again.”

Read said: “You need the skin of a rhinoceros to be in this business, it’s not about Love Island, it’s the whole industry. Indeed, The Curse of Love Island makes many valid points about real-world problems, but it seems to forget that Love Island does not exist in a vacuum. Philosopher Mark Fisher wrote in Capitalist Realism in 2009: “Reality TV always raises questions about fiction and falsehood.” In recent years, the great increase in social it only adds to the strange boundaries between real life and entertainment, performance and literature, pathos and people. Indeed the problem here is not so much the Curse of Love Island, but the well-dressed curse of overnight fame.

The Curse of Love Island is on Prime Video now.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans you can contact the free phone number 116 123. In the US, you can call or text National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, chat 988lifeline.orgor contact HOME to 741741 to contact a crisis advisor. In Australia, crisis support A way of life and 13 11 14. Other international helpline numbers can be found at befrienders.org