Vasana Montgomery, 25, has been dismissed from the upcoming season just days before the premiere, making it the second consecutive year the show has faced this situation.
Who is Vasana Montgomery
Vasana Montgomery, a 25-year-old from Beaverton, Oregon, was one of the announced cast members for Season 8 of Love Island USA. She was set to appear alongside other contestants including Aniya Harvey, Beatriz Hatz, and Bryce Dettloff when the season premieres on Peacock on June 2.
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She was removed from the show before filming even began.
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What happened
Videos surfaced online appearing to show Montgomery using the N-word. In one clip, she appears to say it while rapping along to a song. In another, she yells it out while her friend is playing an arcade game.
A user on social media uncovered the clip of Vasana singing or mouthing the racial slur while sitting in a car. The footage spread rapidly across platforms after the Season 8 cast was announced.
Production sources confirmed to TMZ that Vasana will no longer be on the show. The sources added that the videos appear to be private clips that were not publicly shared until after the cast announcement, which is why they would not have come up during production’s vetting of Montgomery.
This is the second year in a row
The news comes just two days after the Season 8 cast announcement, repeating an uncomfortable pattern. Last year, Yulissa Escobar was removed during the second episode of Season 7 because of videos of her using the same slur.
In the clips obtained by TMZ, Escobar was heard using the N-word multiple times while discussing previous relationships. Her exit was given very little context on the show. At around the 18-minute mark of an episode, as the islanders were waking up, series narrator Iain Stirling announced, “Yulissa has left the villa.”
After her removal, Escobar released a public apology on Instagram. She wrote, “I used the N-word ignorantly, not fully understanding the weight, history or pain behind it. I wasn’t trying to be offensive or harmful, but I recognize now that intention doesn’t excuse impact. And the impact of that word is real. It’s tied to generations of trauma, and it is not mine to use.”
Season 7 had multiple controversies
The Escobar situation was not an isolated incident in Season 7. Later in the season, Cierra Ortega also exited for a similar reason. She used a racist term for Asian people and claimed she “had no idea” it was a slur.
In October 2025, former contestant Huda Mustafa and her then-boyfriend Louis Russell came under fire after they laughed at someone calling their co-star Olandria Carthen the N-word. The incident occurred when the two went on Instagram Live and answered a phone call from a fan. The person used the slur, and Huda and Louis laughed before shutting the caller down. The two later apologized to their fans and to Olandria.
The Season 8 premiere still goes ahead
Despite the removal of Montgomery, Love Island USA Season 8 is still set to return to Peacock on June 2. The production has not made a public statement beyond confirming that Montgomery will not appear in the series.
The back-to-back incidents have raised questions about how the show vets its cast members. Production sources explained that private videos not publicly shared before the casting announcement are difficult to catch during a standard vetting process. Whether Peacock or the show’s producers will change their screening procedures ahead of future seasons remains unclear.
Love Island USA has not yet announced whether a replacement cast member will be brought in for Season 8.
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