An ITV boss has addressed reports this year’s Love Island cast will include gay contestants.
Back in April, it was reported that producers were looking for LGBTQ contestants to take part in the summer series, to make the show more diverse.
However, ITV’s commissioner Amanda Stavri has since claimed the inclusion of gay contestants presents a “logistical difficulty”.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com, she said: “There’s been quite a few rumours circulating about featuring gay Islanders, so it’s worth touching on that really.”
“The line-up will be announced within time and it goes without saying that we want to encourage greater inclusivity and diversity.”
“In terms of gay Islanders, I think the main challenge is regarding the format of Love Island.”
“There’s a sort of logistical difficulty, because although Islanders don’t have to be 100 per cent straight, the format must sort of give [the] Islanders an equal choice when coupling up.”
“With our dating shows, such as The Cabins, there is much more sexual diversity. The formats don’t have as much restrictions as Love Island.”
“So we’re very sort of mindful of that across our programming on ITV and dating series. But that’s the difficulty with Love Island.”
“We’re always very mindful of diversity and inclusion and hopefully you’ll see that when we announce the line-up,” she added.
Amanda also revealed producers met with over 1,000 applicants for this year’s show.
“There’s been more applications than ever. They’ve whittled it down and we’re all very pleased,” she said.
“We’ve got a big sort of pool at the moment and we need to sort of work out who to put in the opening line-up and who sort of to hold back, you know as a bombshell – we need the bombshells!”
The series, which is being filmed in Mallorca, is expected to return to ITV2 and Virgin Media One at the end of June/early July.
Laura Whitmore is returning as host, alongside her husband Iain Stirling – who is the show’s voiceover artist.
