This series of ‘Love Island’ has proved to be the most controversial yet, with over 4,000 complaints made to Ofcom.
The number of complaints lodged with the broadcasting regulator about the ITV2 reality series has increased by over 260 times since the first series three years ago.
According to The Mirror, the 2015 run attracted just 15 complaints, where as the most recent one attracted 4,193, despite showing far fewer moments of intimacy between the contestants this year.
By comparison, people complained about the second series 40 times, while last year’s show saw 135 Ofcom complaints, which the majority of were about too much smoking being shown.
While producers took action on that matter, introducing a solo smoking area for the Islanders which wasn’t seen on screen, people still flocked to complain about the show.
Over 2,500 complaints were lodged about an out-of-context video that was played to Dani Dyer, showing her boyfriend Jack Fincham’s reacting to his ex-girlfriend Ellie Jones joining him in Casa Amor.
Some 557 contacted Ofcom after Georgia Steel’s kiss with Jack Fowler due to the subsequent treatment of Laura Anderson.
The media regulator recently declared that they wouldn’t be taking the matter any further, as they didn’t feel ‘Love Island’ breached any of their guidelines.
They acknowledged that while Dani’s emotional reaction was difficult to watch, they said viewers should expect “emotionally charged scenes” and “scenes [which] have been engineered to test contestants’ relationships”.
Dani herself defended the stunt during an interview with The Sun, saying: “Oh listen, they’ve got to make a TV show. If I weren’t crying the viewers would drop.
“Yeah it was hard, it was a test for me and Jack. But we got back together. We had the up, we had the down — and now we’re up.”