Ariana Madix is under fire for the alleged “mean girl energy” she brought to the set of the Love Island USA season six reunion.
Following the airing of the episode earlier this week, cast member Daia McGhee, 27, shared her thoughts on the taping. And in doing so, she accused the 39-year-old Vanderpump Rules cast member of rubbing her the wrong way as she also targeted Pump Rules‘ ratings.
“The host gave mean girl energy,” Daia proclaimed, as seen in a video shared by a Love Island fan account on TikTok. “Ariana did make a comment that rubbed me the wrong way at the reunion. They – obviously – didn’t put it in. But, it was after they did the whole Leah and Andrea fire pit scene.”
According to Daia, producers aired a feud between her castmates before Ariana asked them to weigh in.
“We had to watch all that stuff and then Ariana was like, ‘Can everyone raise your hand if you think Leah took a backseat?’ I was like, ‘I am not raising my f*cking hand for anything. I don’t care. I wasn’t even there. I don’t give a f*ck.’ And then no one else wanted to raise their hand either,” she recalled.
Daia continued, “So, she was like, ‘I’m going to ask you guys again.’ And then she asked again. Like, ‘Everyone, raise your hand if you think Leah took a backseat.’ And I was like, again, not raising my hand. And she was like, ‘Come on, guys. I’ve been on a reality show and I got treated way worse than you guys and you guys need to pretty much get over it.’”
After Ariana seemingly signaled the affair between Tom Sandoval, 42, and her former friend, Rachel “Raquel” Leviss, 29, Daia felt that she was making the reunion about herself.
“This is Love Island. This is not Vanderpump Rules or whatever show you were on,” she stated. “As a host, you don’t say your experience was way worse than what we’re going through because, at the end of the day, Love Island‘s numbers did way bigger than that, or whatever show she was on.”
Overall, Daia felt that Ariana was diminishing what the cast had been through amid filming on Love Island USA, which Deadline named the most-watched streaming reality series in June as Pump Rules was put on pause.
“Respectfully, I just feel like she was trying to make comments saying that, like, she’d been through a lot more than we have ever been through and we need to get over ourselves, which was f*cking crazy. But I just feel like as a host of a show, it’s your job to not pick favorites. It’s your job to just be the mediator,” she concluded.