Season 8 of Love Island USA has taken social media by storm ā thanks in large part to the "bromance" between reality contestants Zach and Bryce, whose homoerotic relationship, including a now infamous "girth check," consistently goes viral.
Frankie Grande knows what it's like to be in their shoes. The gay Big Brother alumnus, whose new memoir Supergay! discusses his queer journey in the limelight, engaged in his own "showmance" with Zach Rance on season 16 of that reality show.
"First of all, I did it first," Grande tells Out. "So it's so funny seeing all the people being like, wait, Frankie and Zach literally did this and then hooked up after the show."
Rance came out as bisexual after their season aired ā but unbeknownst to both at the time of filming in the no-phones-allowed production, the pair's flirtation was the subject of intense viewer scrutiny. Love Island contestants must all disconnect ā and Grande worries about the impact on the men once they reconnect to the world.
"The world perceiving us as a couple...actually was really detrimental to my mental health. And so I hope it doesn't go that way for them," he says.
Grande also worries about how Zach and Bryce will handle talking about their relationship after their season of the Peacock reality show wraps. "I hope that when they come back to being in a place where they can talk about this, that they're not homophobic," he says. "Like, that would make me so fucking sad. If they're like, no, man, that's gross, bro. Like, we're just dudes, man. Like, that's how bros are. Like, I will kill everyone. So I'm just really hoping that what's happening is that these are two bisexual men who figure out that they should be fucking each other. And that would be great. I would love that."
Love Island uses a heterosexual model for its rules; contestants of different genders must pair off in order to advance in the competition. (In the past, the U.K. show's producers said casting LGBTQ+ contestants would present "logistical hurdles." But that hasn't stopped dozens of contestants from later coming out ā including the U.S. version's bisexual host, Ariana Madix, who has said she wants to see more queer faces on the show.)
Grande sees it as a sad state of affairs that there has not been much progress in LGBTQ+ representation in the reality TV space since he was first on Big Brother, particularly in these competitive formats. He diasnoses the internet obsession with Zach and Bryce as symptomatic of this problem. "When this is the only thing that is happening on television that is potentially love between two men, everything rides on it. It's like everyone is talking about these two fucking men because it's all that we have," he says.
"Why are there not gay men on Love Island? Like, why can't we have also gay men, and straight people, and... like everyone island? ...Why not throw a couple gays in there and a couple straight people and a couple bisexual people and just see what the fuck happens?"
"We're still in this situation where they will not show gay people interacting on TV. And the only way that it happens is by accident. I did that 12 years ago. Twelve years ago, there was a gay romance on Big Brother because it was an accident. They didn't know that they cast a bisexual man. He didn't know he was bisexual... I think that's was probably what's happening again, is that one of those guys is bisexual and doesn't know and now is finding out on television. And that I just think that we're in a place where we should be so much further along than that. And that scares me that it's the only example of gay love on TV right now."
Frankie Grande's memoir Supergay! is available now from Sourcebooks and wherever books are sold.
