How 'Love Island USA' Takes Care of Its Contestants' Mental Health

Reported by Vogue.

Reality dating shows have always sold the same fantasy: sun, attractive strangers, the slim possibility of love, and a cash prize waiting at the finish line. Love Island USA has perfected the formula — last season clocked just over 1 billion minutes viewed between June 6 and 12, 2025, according to Deadline figures cited by Vogue. But as the audience has exploded, so has the scrutiny around what happens to the people inside the villa once the cameras stop being kind.

The show's production company, ITV America — which streams on Peacock — confirmed to Vogue that a dedicated care infrastructure exists around every cast member from pre-filming through post-show life. That team includes two on-site licensed psychologists, a full-time welfare manager, a duty-of-care representative, plus producers, managers, and HR. Before anyone sets foot in Fiji, potential Islanders go through multiple psychological assessments. Season 4 alum Deb Chubb shared on TikTok that contestants are also required to provide doctor-cleared medical clearance letters and must disclose all prescription medications to production, which then manages daily distribution during filming.

Support on Paper vs. Support in Practice

Once filming begins, each contestant is paired with a psychologist for weekly check-ins, with on-call access whenever needed. Offboarding includes two psych sessions before leaving the villa, plus monthly follow-ups for up to six months and social media guidance post-show. The structure sounds robust. But former Islanders have been frank about its limits. Season 1 contestant Caro Vie Lacad said on YouTube that while her psychologist was technically accessible, the sessions felt surface-level — "It wasn't anything digging deep. It felt like I was just talking to another producer." Season 6's Leah Kateb told Call Her Daddy she saw the on-set psychologist three times a day at points, driven partly by anxiety about how viewers were perceiving her behavior in real time.

The stakes are not abstract. Refinery29 reported that 38 former reality TV stars had died by suicide as of six years ago. The UK version of Love Island has been hit especially hard — contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis, along with former host Caroline Flack, all took their own lives. Against that backdrop, anti-cyberbullying PSAs featuring host Ariana Madix feel like the bare minimum, however well-intentioned.

Production does brief contestants in advance about the realities of going viral for the wrong reasons — negative press, public ridicule, zero access to a phone. That transparency matters. But briefing someone that online hate exists is different from protecting them from it, and a weekly check-in can't fully account for the psychological weight of having your personality dissected by strangers on a daily basis while you're stuck in a villa with no outside contact.

Caring infrastructure and genuine mental healthcare are not the same thing — and until the industry closes that gap, all the PSAs in the world are just good optics.

Read the original at Vogue.