Former Love Island USA Season 8 contestant Alannah Keyser has issued an apology for a now-viral video of her using a racial slur.
Keyser took to TikTok to apologize and address the controversy that’s been stirring ever since she was abruptly removed from the show.
"I'm coming on here to address some things that have been circulating online. I do want to begin by addressing the video of me singing along to a Roddy Ricch song that contains a racial slur," she said. "I'm sorry to whoever has seen that video and has been offended by it. That was never my intention. The video is from six years ago, and that word is just not in my vocabulary anymore."
"I do want to say directly that I do not support racism or discrimination of any kind, and I never have,” Keyser added. “[T]his has definitely been a learning lesson for me, and it sucks that I didn't get a chance to really show my personality and who I am."
The surfaced video that began circulating on social media appears to show her singing along to Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” and using the N-word. Additionally, screenshots of her using the slur in old social media comments also hit the internet at the same time — but she claims those screenshots are fabricated.
Keyser had debuted on the June 21 episode as one of six Casa Amor bombshells. She lasted through roughly the first 20 minutes of the June 25 episode before narrator Iain Stirling confirmed her removal with the line: "Alannah has left Casa Amor."
Behind the scenes, producers had already been cutting her presence down. An insider told Page Six that Keyser was "mostly edited out" of the June 23 episode after the video emerged, with the source adding, "Producers were disappointed and embarrassed that this has become another mishap."
In the midst of the growing controversy, Keyser's father, Stephane Keyser, spoke out to TMZ, saying that his daughter is an "educated sweetheart" and "there's no world in which Alannah is a racist.”
The incident makes Keyser the fourth Love Island USA contestant in two years to face scrutiny over past racial slur use. Earlier this season, Vasana Montgomery was dropped before the premiere after similar videos emerged. In Season 7, both Yulissa Escobar and Cierra Ortega exited the show last summer after old recordings and posts resurfaced, with Escobar acknowledging she had used the N-word "ignorantly, not fully understanding the weight, history, or pain behind it.” Ortega had used a slur against Asian people in an old post that was noticed, screenshotted, and shared on social media.
