Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Managing Director, has admitted that a more inclusive series of Love Island won’t be happening any time soon as he responded to calls for LGBTQ+ contestants to feature on the ITV2 dating show.
Diversity has long been a contentious issue for the show, with fans hoping to see wider representation of race, sexuality and body types, but although a casting call was sent out to LGBTQ+ singletons on Tinder earlier this year, the TV boss shut down speculation that gay contestants could be featured on an upcoming series.
Speaking on a virtual Edinburgh TV Festival session yesterday, he said, “Love Island is a particular thing, of course, it’s about boys and girls coupling up.”
He continued, “So if you wanted to do a gay version, or you wanted to widen it, it is discussed and we haven’t yet found a way that would make it suitable for that show.
“You talk about Strictly, we had a gay couple on Dancing On Ice before that. We had a blind skater on Dancing On Ice, we had a disabled person in I’m A Celebrity last year. So, I think ITV is already involved in the portrayal of a wide range of people on their shows."
CHECK OUT Love Island winners - where are they now?
Love Island winners - where are they now slider
1 of 242005 - Celebrity Love Island - Jayne Middlemiss
TV presenter and model Jayne Middlemiss was the first person to win Celebrity Love Island, alongside Fran Cosgrave. Nothing happened between the pair when they left the villa, with Jayne continuing with work in TV, including shows such as Celebrity Masterchef and Pointless. She's now a radio presenter!
2 of 242005 - Celebrity Love Island - Fran Cosgrave
Fran Cosgrave, who is the former Westlife bodyguard, went on to land his own spin-off TV show alongside Calum Best and Paul Danan, before releasing his autobiography in 2006. Fran dated Atomic Kitten singer Natasha Hamilton, with the pair welcoming a son together, but they've since split.
3 of 242006 - Celebrity Love Island - Calum Best
Despite being on the show in 2005, Calum Best re-entered the Celebrity Love Island villa in 2006, this time winning the show alongside Geordie girl Bianca Gascoigne.
4 of 242006 - Celebrity Love Island - Calum Best
Since leaving the villa in 2006, Calum has kept himself in the spotlight, appearing on a number of other shows such as Celebrity Big Brother and Famously Single. In 2018 it was being reported that Calum was dating Hannah Murrell, despite the model being 16 years younger than the 38-year-old.
5 of 242006 - Celebrity Love Island - Bianca Gascoigne
Entering the Celebrity Love Island villa as a glamour model in 2006, Bianca won the show alongside Calum Best.
6 of 242006 - Celebrity Love Island - Bianca Gascoigne
Although nothing materialised romantically between Bianca and Calum outside of the show, the model went on to achieve success, appearing on shows such as Gladiators, Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Coach Trip.She even auditioned for The X Factor in 2012!
7 of 242015 - Love Island: Jess Hayes and Max Morley
When Love Island returned to our TV screens in 2015, with host Caroline Flack, Jess Hayes and Max Morley were crowned the winners, taking home a massive £50,000 each.Just 40 days after leaving the villa, the pair split up, leaving viewers of the show heartbroken.
8 of 242015 - Love Island: Jess Hayes
Despite splitting from Max, a few years later Jess found true happiness with her boyfriend Dan Lawry. The pair welcomed their first child together in 2019, a baby boy called Presley James Lawry.
9 of 242015 - Love Island: Max Morley
Max has kept himself relatively out of the spotlight since he won the show, but in recent months he's been dating Love Island 2018 star Laura Anderson.
10 of 242016 - Love Island: Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey
After coupling up on Day One of Love Island 2016, it was love at first sight for Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey, who went on to beat Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen in the series two final.
11 of 242016 - Love Island: Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey
Despite splitting for a short period, Cara and Nathan rekindled their romance after discovering Cara was expecting the couple's first baby. After Cara gave birth to baby Freddie, Nathan then proposed to his girl back in the Love Island villa, with the pair getting married in 2019. A true Love Island fairytale!
12 of 242017 - Love Island: Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies
It didn't take long for Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies to couple up on Love Island series three, with the pair going on to win the show ahead of Chris Hughes and Olivia Attwood.Despite this, the pair ended their romance just before Christmas in 2017, but they have remained friends!
13 of 242017 - Love Island: Kem Cetinay
He's a single boy, but that hasn't stopped Kem going on to achieve great things. As well as landing a record deal with his Love Island BFF Chris Hughes (and a TV show to follow), Kem appeared on Dancing On Ice and now he's joined This Morning as their showbiz reporter. In 2019 he was also unveiled as Primark's first ever male ambassador.
14 of 242017 - Love Island: Amber Davies
Despite being romantically linked with the likes of Chris Clark and Liam Payne, Amber has remained single since her split from Kem.Pursuing her dream of being on stage, Amber landed her dream role in Dolly Parton's West End musical 9 To 5 alongside the likes of Louise Redknapp, and she's received amazing reviews.
15 of 242018 - Love Island: Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer
The nation fell in love with Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham when they coupled up and won Love Island in 2018. Despite high hopes for the couple, Dani and Jack announced they'd split up in April 2019.
16 of 242018 - Love Island: Dani Dyer
Just weeks after her split from Jack, Dani started dating her ex-boyfriend Sammy Kimmence, and the pair look super loved-up on social media. As well as this, the reality star has reportedly made more than £1 million since she left the villa, with various clothing deals, Instagram posts and her own eyelash product.
17 of 242018 - Love Island: Jack Fincham
After his split from Dani, Jack joined the cast of series seven of Celebs Go Dating, in an attempt to find his perfect girl. Jack has also teamed up with brands like McDonald's and Protein World, and his debut clothing line is due out later in 2019.
18 of 242019 - Love Island: Amber Gill and Greg O'Shea
After getting her heart broken by Michael Griffiths, Amber Gill was swept off her feet when Irish hunk Greg O'Shea entered the villa with just two weeks to go! Despite only knowing each other for 12 days, Greg and Amber were crowned winners of the 2019 series, beating Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae for the Love Island crown.
19 of 242019 - Love Island: Amber Gill
Although Amber and Greg appeared to leave the villa on good terms vowing to stay together and split the cash prize, their relationship didn't last with their split announced just five weeks after they left the show.In the time since Amber has gone on to have a successful career as a model and influencer and has a whopping 2.6M followers on Instagram.
20 of 242019 - Love Island: Greg O'Shea
Since leaving the show greg has continued to pursue his successful sporting career and has seen lots of success. He even competed in last years Olympic Games (WOW).
21 of 242020 - Love Island: Paige Turley and Finn Tapp
Paige Turley and Finn Tapp won the first (and potentially only) series of Love Island to take place in South Africa. They beat favourites Siânnise Fudge and Luke Trotman and left the show on strong form, deciding to split the £50,000 with Luke announcing he wanted to spend his winnings on a home for him and Paige (awww).
22 of 242020 - Love Island: Paige Turley and Finn Tapp
Paige and Finn have been together ever since and by all accounts seem to be going strong. We guess love is real...
23 of 242021 - Love Island: Millie Court and Liam Reardon
Millie Court and Liam Reardon hit it off from the get go but went through a rough patch following Casa Amor. However Liam managed to win Millie around and they won the seventh season.
24 of 242021 - Love Island: Millie Court and Liam Reardon
They left the show loved up and have since moved in together. While there has been rumours floating around that they might have split, Millie has shut down the speculation.
His comments echo those of ITV commissioner Amanda Stavri who previously said that including LGBTQ+ contestants on Love Island is a “logistical difficulty”.
She told Radio Times, “In terms of gay Islanders, I think the main challenge is regarding the format of Love Island. There’s a sort of logistical difficulty, because although Islanders don’t have to be 100 per cent straight, the format must sort of give [the] Islanders an equal choice when coupling up.
“With our dating shows, such as The Cabins, there is much more sexual diversity. The formats don’t have as much restrictions as Love Island. So we’re very sort of mindful of that across our programming on ITV and dating series. But that’s the difficulty with Love Island.”
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This all comes after 2021 Islander Sharon Gaffka, who identifies as bisexual, revealed that conversations about sexuality and race were cut from the show.
“A lot of the conversations I had about modern dating on the show were never aired, but I was very open about sexuality and being a mixed-race woman in modern dating,” she told Metro.
Sharon added, “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.'"
Megan Barton-Hanson, who came out as bisexual after appearing on series four of Love Island in 2018, also told the publication, “If they had an all gay line-up, it would just be so much more interesting to watch.”