Zak Says Love Island Didn't Show The "Nasty Things" Amaya Said To Him
"What you guys saw and what we saw were two different things."
Love Island USA viewers saw the highs and lows of Zak Srakaew’s relationship with Amaya Espinal on Season 7, but according to the model, the worst of it never made it to air. “What you guys saw and what we saw were two different things,” Zak tells Elite Daily. He’s talking about the season’s heated postcards challenge, which sparked a fight between Zak and his then-partner that he says was edited out of the episode.
“I actually got a lot of postcards, which weren't shown on the show. That was very confusing,” Zak says, speaking of Episode 26’s “Stand on Business” challenge, in which islanders could send anonymous comments to each other to be read aloud. But with most of the postcards shown, the senders identified themselves. “No one actually signed their name on my postcards,” Zak says. “So I stood up and was like, ‘If you're going to say something, say it with your chest. At least own up to it.’”
Not only was Zak’s outburst not shown in the episode, neither was Amaya’s response to it. “She said a lot of nasty things to me, which I'm not going to repeat,” Zak says. “That’s what made me retaliate the way I did.”
The episode did show Zak echoing Austin Shepard’s comment that Amaya has been moving too quickly in relationships, which caused her to burst into tears. “That's the only clip they showed,” Zak says. “So, it looked like I was going in on her, but they didn't show what she was saying to me before that.”
Afterwards, Zak says he encouraged other guys to pursue Amaya. “It wasn’t shown, but I said to the boys, ‘Listen, Amaya's a great girl, if you guys are interested in her, you’re more than welcome to go speak to her.’ So, I kind of gave Bryan [Arenales] and Elan [Bibas] the green light.”
Despite all that, Zak says he did find a reignited spark with Amaya shortly before he had to leave the villa. “We had a conversation, and everything just changed for me. Everything just kind of came back to me, and I thought, ‘You know what? Maybe I do like this girl,’” Zak says. “I do believe that me and her had something special behind the ups and downs. I felt a little connection right towards the end, a real connection.”
