Love Island contestants accused of racial bias by former contestant Marcel Somerville
'Black guy, black girl and mixed race guy all left unpicked. Mad!!!'
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Former Love Island contestant Marcel Somerville has highlighted the alleged racial bias present in the ITV show.
During the first episode of the fifth season, new Islanders Yewande Biala, Sherif Lanre and Michael Griffiths were sidelined by their fellow contestants during the first coupling up of the series.
The couple selection process seemingly sparked "flashbacks" for Somerville from his own time in the competition in 2017, when none of the female contestants stepped forward to indicate that they were interested in him.
"This is mad!!!! #LoveIsland flashbacks! Black guy, black girl and mixed race guy all left unpicked. Mad!!!" the former member of Blazin' Squad tweeted.
Somerville's tweet has been liked 3,000 times, with several Love Island viewers making the same observation as the rapper.
"Another black Islander yet again, not being/wanting to be coupled up with," one person tweeted.
"Eurocentric standards of beauty seem to still play a role," another added.
Some Love Island fans have drawn parallels between scientist Yewande and former contestant Samira Mighty, who was in the last couple to pair up during the initial selection process on the fourth series of the reality television show.
"Soooo Yewande is receiving the same treatment as Samira, this is not okay," one person tweeted.
Prior to the start of this year's series of Love Island, fans of the show called on ITV to remove new contestant Anton Danyluk after a photograph of him wearing blackface makeup in 2013 was unearthed.
Somerville stressed the offensive nature of blackface on his Instagram story, explaining that it "invokes a racist and painful history".
To read all about the first 12 contestants on this year's series of Love Island, click through the gallery below.
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