Cierra Ortega has exited the villa.
Love Island USA announced during the show’s July 6 episode that the 25-year-old had left the villa due to a “personal situation,” leaving the other half of her former couple, Nic Vansteenberghe, single.
Cierra’s exit comes after multiple posts, which E! News has not authenticated, emerged online in which she used a racial slur for Asian people. The posts—and subsequent images of alleged DMs in which she claimed to have used the word in an inoffensive context—caused a swift online backlash, with many fans calling for producers to remove Cierra much like Islander Yulissa Escobar was earlier this season.
E! News has reached out to Love Island USA and Cierra for comment but has not yet heard back.
While Cierra has yet to address the controversy, her parents shared a message encouraging people to treat their daughter with compassion, calling this “one of the most painful weeks” of their lives.
“We’re not here to justify or ignore what’s surfaced,” they wrote in a message shared to Cierra’s Instagram Story July 6. “We understand why people are upset, and we know accountability matters. But what’s happening online right now has gone far beyond that.”