Love Island’s Tanya Manhenga has fast become the most talked about woman of the series this year, particularly after last night’s episode saw the return of ‘movie night’. Now, viewers are dubbing her ‘manipulative’ and have accused her of gaslighting partner Shaq Muhammad during a ‘movie night’ argument after he bore witness to her Casa Amor flirtation with Martin Akinola for the first time.
ICYMI, Tanya coupled up with Martin after entering Casa Amor unsure about her and Shaq’s compatibility. Returning to the villa, she gave Martin a few days before ultimately deciding that she still preferred Shaq, reuniting with him in the form of a grand gesture speech on Tuesday. Naturally, Martin wasn’t best pleased about how Tanya had handled the situation.
Now, Shaq has been forced to watch everything Tanya said and did with Martin during Casa Amor, and last night accused her of underplaying their steamy in-bed kiss as ‘a peck initiated by Martin’. But the ever-bold Tanya wouldn’t back down, insisting she never said it was ‘a peck’, and thus had completely told him the truth as Martin did initiate the kiss. What followed was an uncomfortable back and forth showing Tanya firmly defend herself to a clearly upset Shaq.
Frankly, it wasn’t the easiest thing to watch. But the reaction online has been beyond vitriolic. Tanya has become enemy number one, viewers piling onto her for refusing to back down in the argument and just apologise. And sure, she could’ve been more empathetic to Shaq’s feelings, but frankly, she doesn’t deserve this tsunami of hatred.
In fact, we’d go as far as to say Tanya isn’t really in the wrong. Rather than hiding what she’s done or making excuses for herself, Tanya has fully owned all of her behaviour from the beginning. She’s often savagely honest, and while that might not be what viewers expect from a woman or would be like themselves, it’s a refreshing change from the way the boys have behaved. While Casey, Will and Tom grovel for forgiveness, acknowledging they were merely at the mercy of their sexual urges – what they’re actually saying is that they used and discarded the Casa Amor girls for a bit of fun, and now don’t even have the backbone to back up what they’ve done. Tanya has owned every decision she’s made, bringing Martin back to give him a real chance and ultimately apologising to Shaq when she saw the error of her ways.
We’ve seen her emotional, we’ve seen her earnestly ask Shaq for forgiveness for embarrassing him. Last night, Shaq began the confrontation about the movie night scenes with an anger that is perfectly normal but also not conducive to reconciliation – so it’s no wonder Tanya responded in the same way, defensive and stubborn in the fact she hadn’t actually lied to Shaq.
Just as she said during the argument, it hurts to see your partner flirting and kissing with someone else in person as opposed to hearing about it second-hand, but that doesn’t mean Tanya has lied about anything. She’s certainly not attempted to manipulate or gaslight him, at worst she could’ve been more empathetic and apologised that he was hurt, but she certainly needn’t admit to false accusations just to end an argument – that’s not good for any relationship long term.
Ultimately, whether you agree with Tanya’s behaviour or not, piling on hatred on social media is not deserved. Remember, we only see a small portion of their time in the villa.