Love Island's Cierra Ortega Says ICE Was Called On Her Family After Racist Post Controversy
Cierra Ortega has addressed the Love Island controversy surrounding her resurfaced racist posts that forced producers to pull her out of the villa.
"Now that I've been back in the U.S. for about 48 hours and I've had the chance to process [everything], I now feel like I'm at a space where I can speak about this without being highly emotional, because I am not the victim in this situation," Ortega started off saying in her Instagram video.
It was announced during the Sunday, July 6 episode that the reality star "left the villa due to a personal situation, leaving Nic officially single."
While this came as a surprise to the rest of the villa, to most viewers it did not come as a shock. The drama had been brewing for days after social media users found past posts by Cierra which included an offensive slur toward the Asian community.
"While I was in the villa, there were some posts that resurfaced from my past where I was very naively using an incredibly offensive and derogatory term," she continued in the video. "I want to first start by addressing not just anyone that I have hurt or deeply offended, but most importantly, the entire Asian community. I am deeply, truly, honestly, so sorry. I had no idea that the word held as much pain, as much harm, and came with the history that it did or I never would have used it."
The controversy caused an uproar among fans, with Cierra revealing she and her family have found the punishment fans are lobbing at them "extremely, extremely difficult."
While Cierra does take accountability for her actions and feels "deeply" sorry for what she has done, she does not believe that there is a "need to fight hate with hate."
"The way people have been approaching my family and my loved ones, they have had ICE called on them," she stressed.
"My family doesn't feel safe in their own home. I'm receiving death threats. There's no need to fight hate with hate. I don't think that's justice," she added.
She labelled her video -- which has reached over 9 million views on TikTok at the time of writing -- an accountability video, "not an apology video."
"I do want to hold my hands up and say that I take accountability for using the word," she said. "But I do want it to be known that I genuinely had no idea that it was a slur. I had no idea of its meaning."
She recalled the moment the inflammatory post went public in 2024 and one of her followers reached out to Ortega to educate her on the word used and its history.
"I think since that moment, I've done so much growing as an individual, and I've tried my best to educate others who might be accidentally holding space for these types of words that could be offensive in their vocabulary," she said, before adding that she agrees with the "network's decision to remove me from the villa."
"I think that this is something that deserved punishment, and the punishment has absolutely been received, for sure," she said.
Ortega ended the video asking Love Island USA fans to allow her "to grow with grace" from this experience and promised "to take strides to be better."
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