JaNa Craig Was Born For The Spotlight

JaNa Craig hasn’t had a lot of time to stop and smell the roses in the last year since Love Island USA Season 6 wrapped. Life as a reality TV star with millions of followers has moved fast — so fast that when the 28-year-old reflects on it all, she finds it hard to pinpoint her greatest “pinch me” moment thus far. She’s attended the Grammys, partied with Rihanna, filmed a Love Island spinoff show, and traveled the globe, and yet, it’s all a blur: “I don't remember anything.”

With Beyond the Villa now airing, Craig’s schedule isn’t letting up anytime soon. We’re chatting right after her photo shoot in a Los Angeles studio near Koreatown in early July, hours before the show’s premiere party. Craig, who lives in Las Vegas and can tell you the best buffet spot for brunch on the strip, has just put in a request for room-service chicken sliders so she can chow down before her evening kicks off. As we get cozy on a couch in the green room, Craig’s neon pink phone blows up with texts from her Love Island besties, Leah Kateb and Serena Page, with premiere party logistics. “What time is everyone getting there?” and “What are you wearing?” She’s also getting messages from her partner at the time, Kenny Rodriguez.

The two, who dated for a year after coming off Love Island, have since split, with Craig and Rodriguez each releasing statements on Instagram on July 29. While Rodriguez wrote their relationship wasn’t built to last despite how much he cared for her, Craig’s post painted a starkly different picture, saying the real reason for the breakup was “terrible, disgusting, and disappointing.” She later called out Rodriguez for not taking accountability in his statement.

While we weren’t able to catch up post-breakup, a source close to Craig tells Elite Daily, “JaNa is beautiful on the inside and out, and while this is a tough time, she's going to come out on top.”

Since the breakup, Craig’s Love Island castmates, including Page and Kateb, rallied around her, unfollowing Rodriguez on Instagram and sharing their support for her on their Instagram stories and in the comments.

Craig, Page, and Kateb — the fierce threesome better known as PPG or Powerpuff Gang — were in the top three couples and remain the breakout stars of Season 6. They’ve been inseparable since the villa, staying in touch over FaceTime and in the group chat when they’re apart. (“If only you guys knew what we say in that group chat. We would get canceled so quickly.”) Craig, who is the Bubbles of PPG and has a sweet-natured voice to match, says she wouldn’t have signed up for Beyond the Villa if Kateb and Page weren’t also on board. “Knowing that I was going to do it with my favorite people made me say yes.”

When the cameras were turned off, we were still there for each other — it wasn't just a TV screen type of thing.

“What makes us unique and special is that it wasn't planned. It was very, very genuine,” Craig says of their friendship. “Obviously, we love our other girls from Season 6, but there was this unspeakable bond between me, Leah, and Serena. When the cameras were turned off, we were still there for each other — it wasn't just a TV screen type of thing.”

This isn’t the first time Craig has jumped back into unscripted TV after Love Island, though. She also starred in NBC’s travel competition series, Destination X, as a surprise contestant in June. Coming in late in the game with Bachelor and The Traitors star Peter Weber, Craig says her time on the show was “a wild experience,” but she made great friendships along the way.

Building connections has always been easy for Craig. She was born in Kailua, Hawaii, raised in Okinawa, Japan, and traveled around Asia as a self-proclaimed “military brat.” “I was everyone's friend,” Craig says of moving around as a kid. It was her inviting personality that demonstrated to her family and friends how ready she was for stardom. “When I was young, I've always had a very outgoing personality, and everyone would tell me, ‘If there's anyone who’s going to become famous, it’s you.’” After all, in high school, she was voted prom queen, homecoming princess, best dressed, and most likely to become president.

Fame finally found the 28-year-old day trader last summer when she was cast in Love Island USA. After graduating from college in 2020, Craig used her entrepreneurial skills in a variety of ways, including starting a lash business and briefly managing Airbnb properties in Texas. Then, in 2023, she was approached to join Season 5 of Love Island USA. After going through several rounds of interviews, she didn’t make the cut. Craig almost didn’t try again for Season 6 (“I don’t like getting turned down twice,” she told The Wrap), but this time around, she was cast as an OG Islander.

Without a connection to the outside world for weeks, the Season 6 crew had no idea how big they had become. When Craig left Fiji and was given her phone back, she was told their season “surpassed Bridgerton” Season 3, becoming the most-watched streaming series in mid-July 2024. “Before I went into the villa, my summer was Bridgerton,” Craig says. “I guess we were the summer, huh?”

Along with PPG, fellow Season 6 cast members Rodrigeuz, Miguel Harichi (Kateb’s partner), Kordell Beckham (Page’s partner), Aaron Evans, Kaylor Martin, Connor Newsum, Olivia "Liv" Walker, and Kendall Washington returned to spend their spring together in LA, filming the spinoff in April. Craig kept in touch with everyone from the show — mostly. “The only person I really had a problem with was Connor,” she says. The two, who were briefly coupled up on Love Island, had a falling out, which Craig says she never got to resolve at the reunion last August. She’s moved on, though. “That's a 2024 thing. When the clock ticked to 2025, it was a new year. It's a whole new energy, a whole new chapter, so I decided to just let it go.”

I don't need that. The way I'm about to turn off my comments.

Reality TV often thrives on drama, but Craig would rather have fun with PPG and keep the peace in the group. In the first episode, she even steps in as mediator for Walker and Martin’s feud. “My heart was just broken because they have such a strong bond,” she says. “We went through a whole summer together, fighting for each other, riding for one another, and then coming out of the villa, they spent a lot of time together. It might've been too much time.” Ultimately, Craig says their “bond is stronger than a camera.” (Her advice for any BFFs with their own bit of friction: “Losing a friend over little things is never ever worth it.”)

Beyond the Villa follows their friend group as they’re all finally in the same city again, navigating their lives in the spotlight. Unlike Love Island USA, which is filmed in real time, the longer production process rivals a series like Vanderpump Rules. Luckily, Love Island USA host and former VPR star Ariana Madix shared some solid advice with PPG before production began. “She told us that we have to remember that the people who comment on social media know nothing of you,” Craig says.

The trailer, which dropped in June, teased tension between Craig and Rodriguez surrounding their separate living situation (she was in Vegas and he was in Dallas), but she says during our sitdown that the tension had been resolved for months. Still, she isn't looking forward to the online discourse. "I don't need that,” she says. “The way I'm about to turn off my comments.”

Respectfully, I feel like Season 6 made such a statement in the world that if it ain't broke, don't fix it

At the time, she said, the biggest adjustment for the two post-Love Island was living in the real world with their newfound fame. (“I always wonder what his life was like before all of this.”) Even though their relationship has now ended, fans watching the season play out will get a glimpse of Craig and Rodriguez’s relationship as they vacationed in Miami, lived as neighbors, and adopted a dog to test out parenting.

There are other intimate parts of her life that she wants fans to enjoy while watching, though. “I hope that they get to see my deep talks with Leah and Serena, and how I really genuinely interact outside of the villa with my friends,” she says. When we speak, Craig says she’d be down for a second season. But she has two suggestions: bringing back Rob Rausch (who starred in Season 5 and 6) and setting it in a new place.

“I love Rob. He's such a good person. And maybe we will do another big villa in Spain or spend the holidays in London, and Aaron and Miguel can show us around.” As far as bringing in any other new cast members from the most recent season, Craig says, “Respectfully, I feel like Season 6 made such a statement in the world that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

Now that she’s done filming, she’s focused on her goals: getting on Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ and landing a movie role. “I need to be the voice of a Disney character,” she says. Craig is also manifesting success for her real estate business, relaunching a lash brand that “branches off into makeup,” and pitching herself for Dancing with the Stars as her next reality show. (“People want me on The Traitors, but I suck at lying.”)

She’s got big dreams, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Even as she was racking up superlatives in school, she knew she would be on the rise: “I’m probably going to be popping in the future,” she once declared (most likely in a cute pink dress that matched her phone case). And you know what? She wasn’t wrong.