NEED TO KNOW
Nic Vansteenberghe is addressing ex Cierra Ortega’s jabs at his relationship with Olandria Carthen.
This summer’s installment of Love Island USA took a turn when Cierra was sent home after posts of her using a racial slur resurfaced mid-season, leaving Nic single. He ultimately coupled up with Olandria, and the pair are still together today.
In the aftermath of her exit, Cierra shared a video to her social media to the “you look happier” trend, where she claimed it was because, “I booked a flight to mykonos after surviving the villain edit on reality tv and I didn’t end up with the guy who never actually liked me and wanted my friend the entire time.”
Nic revealed his reaction to Cierra’s post during an appearance on the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast on Tuesday, Aug. 19.
“Yeah, I saw that,” he said, adding that he and Cierra haven’t spoken since she left the villa. “I was taking my time to process things, and that video just was so off-putting for me. Especially the way I spoke — I still speak so positively about her after she posted that — and I spoke so positively about our relationship before that. I never once bashed her. I never once told her that I wasn’t interested in her.”
Nic pointed out that in his first interviews after the season ended, he emphasized how much he “cared about her” and shared that making their relationship exclusive was “a big thing” for him.
“Through her leaving the villa and then exploring Olandria, which is what Love Island’s about, I found this great connection, amazing connection with Olandria, and then she’s bashing me for that,” Nic noted of Cierra’s posts. “So to me, I was like, ‘All right. I’m going to take that on the chin. That’s fine if you feel that way, but I’m going to keep moving on.’”
Ben Symons/Peacock via Getty; Ben Symons/Peacock via Getty
Admitting that things might’ve ended differently had Cierra not gone home, Nic said he doesn’t think much about what could have been.
“Things were how they went,” he explained. “When you’re going through being in the villa for two months and then going into this new world of like, you have like paparazzi following you everywhere, you have meetings from morning ‘till night, you have a new relationship to focus on, and then you see a post like that. It’s like, why? It just made me feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m happy where I’m at, and I don’t need to indulge in the online negativity,” he added.
In July, Cierra made a 10-minute-long video addressing her sudden departure from the dating show, claiming she was “hurt” to watch Nic and Olandria develop a romantic connection.
“As I watched as a viewer, from someone on the outside, and I saw their connection forming, I was like, ‘Damn, okay. It f—— hurts,'” she said at the time.
She also explained that she expected to hear from them when the show ended, but she never did.
“As the days went on, and it just kind of felt like I never existed, and like the friendship Olandria and I shared had never existed, and the relationship that Nic and I shared had never existed, that s— hurts,” she continued. “Being shut down with no closure — it’s closure that I’ve had to provide for myself — it’s a lot.”
Nic and Olandria came in second in the Love Island USA season 7 finale and later shared that they chose to ignore the “spark” they felt during their initial kiss during Casa Amor.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I feel so guilty. I’m just going to write it off and say that there wasn’t, out of respect for Cierra,’” Olandria told PEOPLE at the time.
Nic also noted that he was Olandria’s “secret admirer from day one,” so it made sense to pursue that when they both became single.
“Our connections are no longer here,” he said of his thought process. “Now that those doors are closed, I think we should explore this and enjoy however much time we have left in the villa.”
Olandria added, “The one moment that I did make a decision for me was the best decision I could have ever made, and made my whole experience way better.”
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Love Island USA season 7 can be streamed in full on Peacock.
