Prime Video's Curse of Love Island Doc Reviewed
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- Prime Video released a two-part documentary, 'The Curse of Love Island,' timed to the finale of the current Love Island series, examining the deaths of three people connected to the show.
- Mike Thalassitis (died 2019), Sophie Gradon (died 2018), and presenter Caroline Flack — who hosted five series — are the three deaths the documentary investigates, with Gradon and Thalassitis both victims of intense trolling.
- Love Island's 2026 launch drew only 600,000 viewers, a steep slide from its 2017 status as one of British TV's biggest hits, which the review links partly to viewer wariness after the deaths.
- Anton Danyluk, a 2019 contestant who became a heavy drinker and drug user and attempted suicide after the show, returned for Love Island: All Stars in 2024, telling the documentary the second stint felt 'a lot more produced.'
- ITV rolled out enhanced duty-of-care measures — therapy, 14 months of contact, plus financial and social media advice — but only after the tragedies, a sequencing former contestant Marcel Somerville suggests may have changed outcomes for Thalassitis.
- Dave Read, manager to several former Islanders including Thalassitis, tells the documentary the media have it 'so wrong' when they draw a straight line between the show and his death, a point the Guardian's review says the film underweights.
- The review argues the deaths are 'incredibly complex' — involving existing mental health conditions, financial pressures, and relentless online abuse — and invokes Mark Fisher's 'Capitalist Realism' to reframe the story as 'the well-worn curse of overnight fame,' not a Love Island–specific phenomenon.
Why it matters: The review underscores that Love Island's enhanced duty of care — therapy, 14 months of contact, social media guidance — only materialized after three deaths. Manager Dave Read insists media coverage oversimplifies by drawing a straight line between the show and Thalassitis's death, while the documentary itself conflates overnight fame with a single programme's 'curse' rather than examining the broader reality TV and social media ecosystem that produces these outcomes.
