Chloe and Georgia in the Love Island villa. (ITV)
Love Island star Georgia Townend has claimed that her experience in the villa “would have been so much easier” if she had been bisexual.
Townend was dumped from the island last week after Hugo, who she was interested in, paired up with Chloe following in a dramatic recoupling.
Appearing on companion show Love Island: Aftersun, Townend, 28, said: “I wish I was bisexual.”
“It would have been so much easier to couple up with the girls than any of the boys,” she explained, adding that she “loves all of [the girls].”
Though some Love Island fans were amused by her comment, tweeting things like “mood” or “girl, same”, many fans were offended.
One viewer tweeted: “No one is talking about how Georgia just said she wishes she was bisexual so she could couple up with the girls, surely I’m not the only one who finds that a bit offensive?”
“I’ve literally been called slurs for being bi and she says that in a passing comment like it’s easy?”
Another Twitter user said: “I feel like people do not recognise how being bi can be hard because of bisexual erasure.”
Love Island has previously been criticised for its lack of diversity and inclusion of LGBT+ islanders.
Many fans were outraged when, ahead of the current season, ITV commissioner Amanda Stavri explained that including “gay islanders” would be a “logistical difficulty.”
Speaking to RadioTimes, Stavri said: “In terms of gay islanders, I think the main challenge is regarding the format of Love Island.
“There’s a sort of logistical difficulty, because although islanders don’t have to be 100% straight, the format must sort of give Islanders an equal choice when coupling up.”
Love Island has featured a handful of LGBT+ contestants in the past, including Katie Salmon and Sophie Graydon who briefly coupled up on the show in 2016, and Megan Barton Hanson, who came out as bi after leaving the villa in 2018.
One fan wrote on Twitter: “Maybe if Love Island didn’t see [bisexuals] as a ‘logistical difficulty’, then they could actually cast openly bi people and let them couple up with whoever cause it would make it way more interesting.”
PinkNews has contacted ITV for comment.