Upon watching the telenovela that is the 53 second viral clip from La Isla de las Tentaciones, the Spanish reality show where couples travel to a tropical island to have their relationships tested by singles looking to have an affair, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the year 2001.
In the video, an open-shirted José Carlos Montoya fall to his knees operatically as the waves crash on the Dominican Republic shores behind him. For he has just been shown live CCTV footage of his girlfriend tucking into bed with another contestant by the show’s host, Sandra Barneda.
The clip is not from 2001, however, when the theatre of cruelty was the flavor du jour, it was from January 2025. As UK viewers are forced to watch Curtis Pritchard frighten the female islanders with another vigorous turn at the samba on Love Island All Stars, their heads have understandably been turned by the Spanish show.
Once Montoya sees what is about to happen on the split screen plasma that has been wheeled onto the beach, he paces around in despair before breaking the fourth wall and legging it across the beach to return to the main villa where the crime is taking place. Naturally, the camera follows him, as does the reluctant host Barneda who seems unsure of how to handle the situation.
With the pitch-black night sky behind him, it feels like a thriller sequence from James Bond as Montoya covers a considerable distance before reaching the villa. Cut to his girlfriend Anita Williams who is having her way with a man named Manuel – it is all too late. Of course, when Montoya approaches the villa, the rest of the contestants know what is happening and try to stop him. We see half naked bodies rise up from the hot tub and couples jumping to their feet from the day beds. Cut back to Williams and Manuel, who have heard the commotion and stop the deed at once.
In part two (you can’t watch part one without searching for part two), Williams runs out to find Montoya screaming while being held back by two other men. He then charges back out to the beach and sits down to talk to Barneda, before Williams runs to follow him, crying and offering him a hug.
There are no subtitles on said clips, it could be a work of mime and everyone would know what was happening, and yet it has already been dubbed ‘the greatest scene in history’ on social media. The account that originally shared the video on X, which has been viewed more than 111.8 million times, captioned the post: ‘This is CINEMA…Montoya… the tension… you don’t need to speak Spanish to understand, this is insane.’
Other posts have echoed its sentiment. The scene has been called ‘Shakespearean’ and ‘one of the best sequences of all time’ and another post reads, ‘subtitles aren’t enough. I need to learn Spanish by tomorrow to REALLY understand Montoya’s crash out.’
It’s certainly dramatic – reality TV gold at its most captivating – but the instant meme-ification of the clip does not bode well for where we are as a society. It might as well have been shot in 2001 because we seem to have wound back the clocks on our collective morality.
Sure, the contestants knew the premise of the show when they signed on and are likely to boost their social media followings off the back of it, but feverishly relishing the real-time breakdown of someone’s relationship is not something we should be proud of.
Montoya was shown those clips for a reason – not to gently inform him that his girlfriend has a wandering eye, but to initiate a physical and emotional reaction. In the search for context, it turns out Williams was his first love. In a previous episode of the reality show, a woman twerked on Montoya, so Williams took Manuel to bed as ‘revenge’. In the following episodes, both Williams and Montoya can be seen breaking down in tears. It is unclear whether Montoya decides to leave the show or not.
We’ve been through all this before. We know the immeasurable cost being on shows like La Isla de las Tentaciones have on the contestants’ mental health, particularly those who are involved in punchy storylines like this one, and yet we seem to have learned nothing at all. The US version of the show, Temptation Island, did start in 2001, and it ended in 2003 for a reason.
While the reality TV era is far from over, we must not let ourselves get dragged back to its grubby beginnings. This viral scene is modern day schadenfreude with an early noughties’ hue. In a capitalist numbers-driven world, which exists in large part on the internet, the reaction to this clip will send a clear message to reality producers: go bigger. Is that really what we want?
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).