It was expected that when Love Island star Rachel Finni called out three male contestants for humiliating her on a public platform, others would seize the opportunity to capitalise on the spotlight.
Kaz Kamwi became a stunning example of how to handle such a situation with class and as an ally.
She spoke out to offer nothing but support to Rachel while rightfully condemning the behaviour of Brad McClleland, Jake Cornish, Aaron Francis and Tyler Cruickshank, who mocked the star during an Instagram live and suggested she wasn’t worthy of being a ‘bombshell’ during last year’s series of the ITV2 dating show.
Rachel admittedly didn’t have the best experience on Love Island and has previously spoken of how she felt used in the villa, notably by Brad who claimed to be interested in her only to make very little effort in building a connection in the days after she arrived as a bombshell. She was eventually dumped from the villa.
Love Island has long had a problem with the inclusion of women of colour on the show, with few success stories across the seven previous seasons and Rachel unfortunately is one casualty.
After all she went through, to see her be so brutally mocked in an unprovoked attack on social media by four grown men was disgraceful, especially with one of them being involved in her poor experience on the show.
Sharing her thoughts on the situation, Kaz kept the focus on Rachel’s hurt feelings and how ‘harmful’ experiencing something like this so publicly can be.
However, there were others like Faye Winter who used it as an opportunity to air their own grievances entirely unrelated to what had happened to Rachel.
Faye, who is in a relationship with Teddy Soares after meeting on last year’s Love Island, began her statement about the drama writing: ‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’
Honestly, it should have ended at that because what came next was completely nonsensical.
The Guide Dogs ambassador went on to give Rachel one very brief mention in her lengthy statement, typed up on the Notes app, before harping on about the 25,000 Ofcom complaints she received after belittling boyfriend Teddy on national TV.
In her misguided attempt at seeming relatable, Faye wrote: ‘I came out of Love Island to 25,000 Ofcom complaints which has now developed into a paid add 12 months later, I feel I can shed some light into this issue and how this affects mental health.’
I’m not sure where the parallels are but Rachel being degraded by men unprovoked and Faye willingly arguing with her boyfriend are not even slightly in the same realm.
‘I want to make clear I’m not diminishing Rachel’s feelings and I also want to make clear I do not condone my behaviour on Love Island,’ she added, again attempting to tie the two situations together.
I could bet £100 on the fact that no one was thinking of the behaviour Faye exhibited on Love Island when Rachel was explaining how she regretted going on the show having been turned into a ‘joke’ by Brad, Aaron, Tyler and Jake, and in various TikTok videos and memes over the past year.
No one would begrudge Faye for speaking out in support or defence of Rachel but she only centred herself in a situation that should have only been about the wronged person’s feelings.
It is white privilege because Rachel could never do the same thing if Faye was in this situation.
Later in her statement, Faye said that she didn’t agree with the four boys being subjected to ‘cancel culture’ but, in my opinion, they weren’t being ‘cancelled’, they were being held accountable for their wrongs. There’s a huge difference in the two and immediately crying ‘cancel culture’ only diminishes the reason they were being called out in the first place.
It’s disheartening to see that not only are Black women often disrespected on Love Island, but the complete disregard for them continues after the show too.
Rachel didn’t need a misguided white saviour in Faye, she should have had an ally.
Let this be a lesson to others on how not to centre yourself in an issue spotlighting the mistreatment of Black women in entertainment.
Credit: SourceYou can read this post on My Celebrity Life.
