Oh Tyrique, beautiful, tactless Tyrique. The 24-year-old semi-professional footballer has quickly become one of the most talked-about contestants on this year’s Love Island. Why? Because his honesty is, well, brutal.
It started in conversation with Ella, whom he’s been coupled up with since day one, where he explained that while he did like her, he wouldn’t really know how much until another girl came in that he could compare his feelings for her to. Yeah, we did warn you it was brutal.
Then came his declaration to Catherine that her partner, Zachariah, was interested in getting to know Molly. There Catherine sat, stunning but stunned among a group of all their new friends, being told that the guy she’d just given a soppy speech to during the previous night’s recoupling wasn’t actually on the same page as her. It was bleak, and while Tyrique did apologise for not telling her sooner in a later conversation, he continued his blunt honesty by telling her Zachariah doesn’t like her as much as she likes him.
Naturally, his admissions have sparked debate online. Is his honesty something all Islanders should be emulating? Or is it just a bit unnecessarily harsh?
‘At least Tyrique is being upfront with Ella, it might not be nice to hear but she knows what’s up! #loveisland,’ one viewer tweeted. ‘Maybe I do like Tyrique he’s the only one real enough to tell Catherine what’s going on #LoveIsland,’ another added.
Then again, some found his lack of tact unnecessary. ‘Tyrique would be a horrible male friend 😭 no tact no nothing. just ‘he hates you bro’ #loveisland,’ one viewer shared to 2,000 likes. ‘Tyrique is so tactless omg!!! Stop talking!!!’ another said.
Now, one can see in how Tyrique expresses himself that he has doesn’t have malicious intentions. Where some of the ghosts of Islanders past used the guise of ‘keeping it real’ to be unnecessarily mean, Tyrique doesn’t appear to be trying to cause harm. That said, the point of brutal honestly is to save someone the humiliation of being left in the dark when they’re being disrespected in secret. Did Tyrique save Ella and Catherine humiliation last night? Some would argue not, given how taken off guard they were. But of course, knowing how twisted Love Island can get with love triangles, he’s certainly prevented them being taken for fools further down the line.
Honestly, it’s anyone’s guess how Tyrique’s attitude to ‘keeping it real’ will work out later on - let’s just hope he keeps that energy after Casa Amor, right?