Exclusive Interview
‘Love Island Games’: Chris & Kay Kay Break Down Their Shocking Elimination and His Injury
In a matter of two episodes, Love Island Games’ Chris Seeley and Kay Kay Gray went from Power Couple status to the chopping block after a competing couple put them there. It made for Season 2’s most intense episode so far. (“This is the most eerie atmosphere since I’ve been here,” Kendall Washington aptly put it in Episode 8.)
It ended with Chris and Kay Kay being dumped from the villa, which many fans have taken to social media to discuss. In particular, they’ve hinged on Kay Kay and Chris’ reactions to finding out that Nicola Gauci Borda-Warr and Isaiah Campbell selected them for a duel, pitting them against Andrea Carmona and Johnny Middlebrooks.
Shortly after their double elimination, Swooon sat down with Chris and Kay Kay to break down the shocking episode, including what was going through their heads during those exchanges with Nicola and Isaiah, the injury that took Chris out of the competition, and more.
Before the duel took place, Nicola approached Kay Kay to talk, only to be refused by the latter. With the prospect of battling Andrea, her best friend in the villa, weighing on her mind, Kay Kay was focused on doing her affirmations and building up courage. (Ninety percent of the game, she said, is mental.)
“I guess [Nicola] wanted to explain her reasoning, or I’m not really sure, but in that moment, her energy was just so heavy, and I had just gotten my mind together like, ‘OK, I can do this,’” Kay Kay explained. “So I just needed to take some space to gather my thoughts and readjust my energy. And her energy was honestly just too much for me at that time.”
Kay Kay wasn’t upset or angry at her fellow competitor, since she understood where she was coming from, having been in a Power Couple before. “And to be honest with you, if I was in her position, that was a power play,” she said. “You put the biggest competition against each other, so you’re getting competition out of here.”
She continued, “I just couldn’t take the energy because I felt like she really needed comforting, and I just didn’t have it in me to comfort her at the moment because I needed to comfort myself.”
Chris took a similar approach in preparing for his duel, putting off a conversation with Isaiah. However, in the moment, there seemed to be a bit more bad blood between them compared to the girls. In one of his confessional interviews, Chris said he would have never done what Isaiah did.
Explaining what he meant by that, Chris pointed out that Isaiah was really big on alliances in the villa, something viewers didn’t see much of onscreen in previous episodes. So while Chris understands it from a strategic standpoint, Isaiah’s choice didn’t make sense based on the conversations they’d had about the OG USA boys sticking together.
“I would’ve done the same, but when you’re approaching that, but also preaching alliance at the same time, it didn’t make sense to me,” he said, “which is kind of why I was kind of thrown off and in my feelings a little bit because throughout that whole time, it was like, ‘Yeah, alliance.’” (Chris added that the alliance is why he didn’t send Kendall or Josh Goldstein home or make them vulnerable when he had the chance.)
Confusion aside, Chris admitted that he holds no ill will toward his fellow competitor. “Same with Nicola,” Kay Kay chimed in. “Like, I love her to death… and I did tell her, ‘I’m sorry that I made you upset.'”
She added, “I felt like [Nicola] really needed to understand that she should have been proud of herself for earning that position and not upset that she’s sending someone home. Well, I’m sure you’re going to be upset. I was upset to make someone vulnerable. But at the end of the day, like, it is a power thing. It’s a positive aspect.”
Chris and Kay Kay’s attempts to get out of their position didn’t pan out. Compared to Chris, Kay Kay’s loss was more straightforward, having lost the first two out of three battles to Andrea. In a boxing ring divided into four zones — two for each competitor — they had to wrestle a weighted training bag into their zone and keep it there by the time a buzzer sounded.
In Chris’ case, he injured his finger and had to tap out after the first round, which Johnny won. The Season 7 alum told Swooon that he tried to convince the medics and production that he could push through it, but they didn’t want to take any chances, and ultimately, neither did he.
“When the medics came in and did an evaluation, they were like, ‘Yeah, you have some good damage being done,'” he revealed, adding that they said it could get worse if he continued the duel. “I was like, well, I’m not about to risk my career.”
Bringing his hand into the frame of the Zoom call, Chris showed the splint on his finger, which he said he’ll have on for another week or two before it’s back to normal. “But yeah, I’ve accepted it and what happened, and I’m totally okay with everything,” he said. “You know, I left with [Kay Kay]. So at the end of the day, I’m okay.”
Love Island Games, Season 2, Every Night Except Wednesdays, 9/8c, Peacock
