‘Love Island USA’ Narrator Iain Stirling Looks Back on Record-Breaking Season 7, Offers BTS Insight (Exclusive)

Love Island USA fans who are struggling with the wait for the reunion — look no further than narrator Iain Stirling’s behind the scenes insight into the record-breaking season.

“[This season] there’s a lot more emphasis put on the journey as opposed to the result.,” Stirling, 37, told Us Weekly as part of our Love Island USA cover story. ”I think it’s about the journey of finding someone and how you grow as a person by doing that. Whereas five or six years ago, you had like proper millennials in there. There was that more traditional approach to dating.”

While some fans questioned the love stories, Stirling is on board with the Islanders taking a different approach.

“The end goal [was] to be with someone and you have this contract with someone you’re in a relationship with to honor that person and to honor that relationship,” he noted. “I think now there’s a lot more people who make contracts with themselves to have the journey that they want and the experience they’re after.”

He continued, “These people are predominantly speaking in their early 20s. If you can’t be selfish dating then — then when can you? Especially people from my generation, they weren’t selfish in their 20s and maybe did not want to upset people. Then they get to sort of 30 to 40 and get divorced and go insane. Maybe it’s the healthier way to do it.”

For those who are maybe just tuning into Love Island — season 7 brought in 18.4 billion streaming minutes, making it the most-watched original season of television on the platform — Stirling as been involved as the narrator on Love Island UK since its premiere in 2015. He joined Love Island USA in 2022 and quickly became a fan-favorite presence.

“I normally finish the UK show about 4 p.m and then I wouldn’t be back on the US one until about 8 p.m. [Around then], I will go to a cafe with my wife or daughter and I chill out. But I couldn’t tell you the last time I slept a full night’s sleep or made plans with somebody,” he explained to Us. “I’m getting much better at it. As the six weeks went on, I was very good at [compartmentalizing]. … I was just trying to get into that switched off position where I could actually sleep as early as possible. Because, obviously, there’s not many hours between the end and me getting up and doing more of it.”

He continued: “So I got quite good at conditioning myself because otherwise you would finish and then be awake for, like, an hour and then you knew you were up in three hours. It sort of drives you nuts. I was getting quite good at it by the end.”

In addition to recording logistics, Us was curious about the other yet-to-be-revealed behind the scenes details. Stirling surprised Us when he revealed what jokes they weren’t allowed to make on screen.

“We didn’t really do many jokes [about tattoos]. I think there’s some weird thing about copyright image or something like that. They were really funny about us doing jokes about tattoos, which,obviously, for me is infuriating because like I could have done weeks of it,” he told Us. “It’s really funny things [we] could have said.”

Love Island USA is currently streaming on Peacock.