Love Island’s Angelista has opened up about a “difficult” experience on the show — and fans are now seeing a very different side to villa life

Love Island’s Angelista opens up about “difficult” experience as a Black woman on the show

Love Island’s Angelista has opened up for the first time about the struggles she facedon the show as a Black woman. Picture: ITV / We Need To Talk podcast

Love Island series 13 star Angelista has opened up for the first time about the struggles she faced on the show as a Black woman.

Love Island 2026 saw Angelista Gunda and Simba Kudyiwa come third place behind Jasmine Müller and Kavan Murphy, and winners Julia Majchrzak and Lorenzo Alessi.

After leaving the show Angelista and Simba have gone from to strength-to-strength but for the first time she has spoken out about how she feels being a Black woman impacted their journey on the show.

Speaking to Paul Brunson on the We Need To Talk podcast, Angelista opened up, saying: “My experience as a Black woman on Love Island, I felt like my experience was, it did feel lonely sometimes, compared to other female contestants.”

Love Island series 13 stars Angelista and Simba. Picture: Instagram

While there has been a clear move to include a broader spectrum of representation on the show over the last decade, Angelista brought to the surface a wider conversation about how the show is produced and how that impacts Black contestants.

She said: “I walked in there, was hardly desired, and then when someone finally walked in that was gunning for me straight away… When I finally had that, the one time, I felt like, now my narrative had to be a situation where he’s the player and I’m sitting around, and I’m just waiting for him to finish his dogs days. When in reality, I had no options.”

The Love Island star said she felt that her partner Simba was given many opportunities to feel desired and explore other options, including The Sleepover where he met bombshells and kissed Mica Harris, and Casa Amor where he hit things off with Mara Pirez.

Talking about the lack of options she was given, Angelista added: “My hand was forced to sit here, because who else [is there]? I’m not going to chat to someone who’s not interested in me just for the sake [of it], no one’s interested in me. And no one came in interested in me.”

Viewers will remember that bombshell Chidi Ogandu did show an interest in Angelista when he arrived in the villa, but she was not interested in him, evening telling him she was “scared” he would pick her at a recoupling.

At the start of the series, Angelista was in a couple with Ope. Picture: ITV

Angelista had written to We Need To Talk podcast host Paul Brunson saying she wanted to talk about her experience as Black woman. Explaining why she did that, she said: “I was just sat their thinking, ‘Hold up, but like I had a really difficult experience, like in terms of my experience just as a Black woman and I haven’t seen anyone else do it’.

“That’s why I was like let me say something, because I really need to get it off my chest. I was talking to my mum and I was just there like, ‘That wasn’t right, what happened, because now I just look crazy.'”

Paul added: “There is, I would call it, a horrendous problem with how Black women are treated on television.”