Love Island finalist Shakira Khan has exposed a race row in the villa, claiming women of colour were regularly sidelined and branded “outcasts” by their fellow islanders

Shakira Khan may have left the Love Island villa this summer with a runner-up title and a romance with Harry Cooksley, but for the 22-year-old from Burnley, the experience was far from a dream holiday in the Spanish sun.

In one of the most candid post-show conversations to date, Shakira has opened up about the reality of navigating racism, toxic beauty standards, and being isolated due to her ethnicity and heritage on the hit ITV2 series.

Speaking on Paul C. Brunson’s podcast We Need To Talk, Shakira offered an unflinching look behind the glossy TV edits of Love Island as she shared her experiences of being judged because of her skin colour.

“People couldn’t sit there and say there was no divide, there was a divide and that’s okay,” she insisted. “As much as people want to sh*t on that, that was my lived experience and my friends will say the same.”

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Shakira says she faced racism while in the villa(Image: YouTube/We Need To Talk)

Shakira’s clashes with housemates including Megan Moore and Helena Ford only underscored the divide between the different girl groups, and Shakira hasn’t held back in slamming their previous claims that they saw no divide between the opposing cliques.

Both Megan and Helena have denied a divide ever existed after their villa experiences, but Shakira strongly disagrees. “That’s bulls**t,” she told Paul. “As much as people want to deny it, the separation was clear.”

According to Shakira, the divide was all rooted in race and appearance and the fact that a lot of the girl’s did not fit the usual beauty standards that the ITV show has long upheld.

Alongside fellow islanders Toni Laites and Yasmin Pettet, Shakira says she was often treated as an outsider simply for not fitting into Love Island’s most traditional mould consisting of “white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.”

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Shakira, Toni, and Yas all felt like ‘outcasts’ in comparison to the other girls (Image: shakirakhan16/ Instagram)

“Me, Toni and Yas call ourselves the outcasts,” she explained. “But you could collectively add Billykiss to that, Malisha, Andrada, Emma… and there’s a pattern here which I don’t think anyone wants to talk about. Women of colour.”

The reality star then recalled how quickly a troubling “outcast” dynamic developed inside the villa walls, but she admitted that the boys were ‘oblivious’ as to what was actually going on.

Without naming names, Shakira described how she and other women of colour found themselves excluded from the dominant girl group. “They were all women of colour,” Shakira insisted, telling podcast host Paul how she and her friends gravitated towards each other after realising they weren’t alone in their feelings of isolation.

Paul, who watched the series closely, backed her up. “This is exactly what I saw happen,” he told Shakira during their conversation, acknowledging the divide that viewers also spoke openly about on social media at the time.

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Meg and Helena have both denied that there was a ‘divide’ in the villa(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)

For Shakira, the exclusion carried echoes of her own childhood and brought her back to place where she swore she would never return to after suffering bullying and isolation due to her Pakistani roots.

“It boils down to childhood, people were banned from the community, even in my hometown,” she reflected. “We talk about the segregation of white communities, Asian communities… people find community in their own and people they have shared experiences with.”

The emotional toll was undeniable for Shakira as she admitted that the divide wore her down and made her lose her sparkle. The endless drama, snide remarks, and the feeling of isolation all got a bit too much for Shakira – so much so that Love Island viewers were terrified that she would quit and go back to the UK.

“If you get told 100 times a day ‘you’re wrong, you’re irrelevant,’ that’s what you start to internalise,” she admitted. “You believe that’s the opinion on the outside because you’ve got nothing else to go off.”

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Shakira shared her truth on Paul’s podcast(Image: YouTube/We Need To Talk)

Despite the pain of her low points in the villa, Shakira told Paul how solidarity with her closest friends Toni and Yasmin, gave her all the strength she needed.

“We banded together, the outcasts,” she said as she reclaimed the label as a badge of resilience rather than rejection after the challenging experience.

Shakira’s honesty marks a rare moment in the Love Island franchise and her honesty is a stark reminder of how race and exclusion shape reality TV beyond the edits that we all see.

By speaking out on Paul’s podcast, Shakira has made it clear that her story is bigger than her summer romance with Harry. She’s proved that it’s all about friendship, identity, authenticity, and refusing to be silenced – regardless of your skin colour or where you’re from.

The Mirror has approached a Love Island spokesperson for comment on this story. Love Island have reiterated their strict duty of care policy, which every Islander is given before they enter the villa.