Love Island USA casts proudly bisexual woman for new series

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Love Island USA has cast an openly bisexual woman for season four, plastic surgery aficionado and vibrator connoisseur Courtney Boerner.

Courtney Boerner will enter the American villa when Love Island USA returns on 19 July.

According to E! News, the 24-year-old stylist is from Winter Park, Florida, and is currently living in Los Angeles.

“Fun facts” about her include that she “has had 19 plastic surgeries”, “could not live without her jewellery or her vibrator”, and “has dated both men and women”.

Boerner lists her celebrity crushes as Keanu Reeves, Michael B Jordan, Will Smith and James Franco.

Previous queer contestants include Kyra Green, who opened up about her bisexuality on the very first episode of the American spin-off, and Leslie Golden, who joined during the season three Casa Amor and is also bisexual.

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The new season of Love Island USA, which will air for the first time on Peacock in the US, comes as the current UK edition approaches its climax.

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The British series, which airs on ITV, has been stubbornly resistant to LGBTQ+ inclusion.

So far there has only ever been one same-sex pairing, with Katie Salmon and the late Sophie Gradon pairing up in the 2016 series.

2021 contestant Sharon Gaffka opened up about having threesomes with men and women during her time in the villa, but claimed the show edited out further conversations about her “exploring” bisexuality.

In June last year, ITV commissioner Amanda Stavri told Radio Times that including LGBTQ+ islanders would present too much of a “logistical difficulty”.

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“Although islanders don’t have to be 100 per cent straight,” she added, “the format must sort of give [the] islanders an equal choice when coupling up.”

In August, ITV managing director Kevin Lygo doubled down on excluding queer contestants, insisting that Love Island is “about boys and girls”.

Speaking at a virtual Edinburgh TV Festival session, Lygo said: “Love Island is a particular thing. It’s about boys and girls coupling up, so if you want to do it as a gay version or you want to widen it, it is discussed and we haven’t yet found a way that would make it suitable for that show.”

But calls for a queer Love Island aren’t going anywhere.

Just last month, former UK Love Island star Megan Barton Hanson, who came out as queer after appearing on the show, called for a “fully” LGBTQ+ series of the show and told producers: “We need to speed this s**t up.”