It’s not nice watching your partner flirt with somebody else, but in the Love Island villa contestants come to terms with their significant other licking, grinding and dancing on their competition in the name of entertainment: we’re talking about the sexy challenges.
This memo doesn’t appear to have quite reached Luca Bish, who adopts a surly demeanour every time Gemma steps up to the plate. This jealousy hasn’t gone unnoticed by Love Island fans, but his so-called ‘protectiveness’ reached new highs on Tuesday when Gemma buckled the boys in for a ‘Mile High Club’ challenge.
As she licked her way down Adam’s neck and adjusted his seat belt, Luca shot snide glances down the aisle, pushed her off him when she tried to show affection and generally made it clear that his cage was well and truly rattled. ‘So, when Tasha was crying because of a challenge Luca was telling her “It’s just a challenge”,’ pointed out one viewer. ‘YET he is sulking BECAUSE of the challenge??? My brain is not braining.’
Indeed, when Gemma (a 19-year-old with the communication skills and emotional maturity of someone more than a decade older) pulled Luca for a chat back in the villa asking: ‘are you annoyed?’ he denied his blatant fury.
After hours of near gaslighting, and Gemma’s patience rapidly waning (‘Luca don't play thick... you were pushing me off, had a face like a slapped a**e, are you 12?!') he slipped up and admitted: ‘It's obviously not nice to see but it's a challenge. Licking other boys, putting your head down there, but it's a challenge. I can't exactly stay annoyed at you for it.'
What followed were several unsuccessful attempts to clear the air and a list of childish behaviours so long it’s hard to recount. First Luca stormed out of the villa, tearing off his mic as he went. He told Gemma to ‘f*ck off’, then (incorrectly) suggested her performance had been the most explicit of any of the other contestants’.
But the remark that really whipped our heads round in high alert? Luca telling Gemma how he ‘expects’ her to ‘behave’. Oh no, no, no. ‘That’s how you talk about your dog or your toddler, not your gf,’ pointed out a fan on Twitter.
This argument isn’t an isolated incident. Repeatedly, Luca has claimed that he’s ‘just a bit protective’ but viewers have called it ‘manipulative and controlling’ behaviour. Last night, while the other Love Island boys merrily cheered their partners, Luca sulked and scolded, unable to offer Gemma the support her nervousness demonstrated she needed. As one viewer put it: ‘A confident intelligent young woman needs a cheerleader not a critic.’
While Paige and Adam pointed watched the couple’s feud in the distance, they pointed out that on the outside world there will be endless club come ons and DM slides directed at Gemma — she is a mega attractive woman. If Luca can’t handle a Love Island game without acting unkindly towards Gemma, the way he’ll process the next whirlwind could be even worse.