If you watched Love Island last night, you’ll be more than well aware of the harrowing debacle that was Dani Dyer crying in the diary room.
In case you’re not though, here’s what went down.
Dani and Jack have recently become boyfriend and girlfriend, meaning that their relationship is now official and that they’re going to get married in the future, probably.
However, soon after they made it villa official, the pair were unceremoniously separated as the lads went off to casa amor to meet some new girls while the original girls stayed where they were and met some new boys.
And while Dani was well aware that Jack was living with some new women, it was only last night that she discovered that he was also living with one of his exes, Ellie.
The way the news was broken to Dani was cruel. She was shown a video of Jack’s reaction as he saw Ellie walk into casa amor, clearly shocked enough to be face-to-face with someone he had apparently been chatting on and off to for an extended period of time.
It was an unnecessary inclusion in the video the girls received, clearly put there to cause some tension and – as Caroline Flack put it – test Jack and Dani’s relationship.
Which yeah, would’ve been fair enough if Dani had just gotten a little bit upset or if Jack had actually been doing some shady shit. But she didn’t and he absolutely hadn’t been.
Following last night’s show, Love Island viewers began to complain about the way the segment was handle, calling it cruel, manipulative, and a nasty ploy for the sake of entertainment.
You could argue that what went down wasn’t that much of a big deal, that it’s all part of the Love Island game, and that Dani would get over it eventually and everything would be fine.
And all of that might very well be true but it’s also true that last night we had to watch a young women bawl her eyes out asking: “why does this always happen to me?”
The footage of Dani in the diary room was difficult to watch, and not just because we all know that Jack is wildly in love with her and that her tears aren’t warranted and that everything’s OK.
She wasn’t shown him sleeping on the outside bed, having a frank conversation with Ellie, or refusing to involve himself in the head-to-head villa game.
She didn’t see him gushing about her to the lads, or be the only guy who said his door was firmly shut, or genuinely tell Josh that he’s “in love with Dani Dyer.”
Instead, she was tricked into believing she was about to be dumped and it hurt.
Dani is one of, if not the only, contestant in Love Island that seems like a regular, normal person.
She doesn’t play up to the cameras, she doesn’t stroll off to scenic locations to have intensely sexual chats with the boys, she doesn’t do anything that would make you think she’s anything less than genuine.
Her reaction during last night’s show was raw. It was upsetting to watch because on an empathic human level, we all know what that kind of hurt feels like.
We’ve all thought we’d lost someone, whether romantically or not, due to circumstances outside of our control. We’ve all believed that someone we loved betrayed us in the worst way possible. We’ve all felt totally and utterly alone.
And yeah, Love Island is just a bit of a laugh or whatever but it’s looking extremely likely that that’s how Dani felt too.
There’s a recoupling tonight and if she isn’t shown extensive footage of Jack going on and on about how much he loves her to make everything semi-OK again, shit’s about to go down.
Because watching Dani Dyer cry was one of the most upsetting things the nation has ever witnessed and I never want to see it again.
