No surprise no person’s watching Love Island! How Temptation Island eclipsed ITV present with public romps, explosive revenge twists and X-rated showdowns

As Love Island is hit with its worst ratings in years, a Spanish series has been stealing the limelight – and it’s packed full of way more twists and spicy scenes than the plummeting ITV programme.

La Isla de las Tentaciones – Temptation Island – has found its way to UK screens, despite airing in Spain, and has made headlines with its public romps and jaw-dropping showdowns. 

From the ‘Montoya phenomenon’ to X-rated scenes and lots of furious shouting – the show sees couples test their relationships in the Dominican Republic, separated in villas and given the chance to cheat on their partners. 

The timing is bad news for spin-off show Love Island All Stars, which has recently been dubbed ‘boring’ by viewers, who called for the show to be ‘scrapped next year’.

Contestants are only allowed to drink a limited amount of alcohol and they reportedly aren’t allowed to get completely naked.

Could ITV’s romance competition have kept things too clean by not buckling to the chaos and drama that has captivated Temptation Island fans?  

The proof is in the pudding and viewing figures for the recent Love Island All Stars final sank to an all time low.

It kicked off with a successful launch of the second series earlier this year, with Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu’s bombshell entrance seeing viewing figures soar up 21% compared to the 2024 season. 

However, the recent finale received the lowest ever ratings for a Love Island final, with only one million viewers tuning in live for the grand finale making it the least watched final since series one in 2015.

Including viewing figures from streaming platform ITVX, 1.3 million fans watched the final, in line with last year’s final of the winter series. 

The show’s peak popularity could be over, with Monday’s numbers hitting an incredible low in comparison to those of series four and five when over three and a half million fans tuned in. 

It’s a stark difference to when 3.6 million tuned in as Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham bagged the £50,000 in 2018, followed by Amber Gill and Greg O’Shea who secured the highest rating ever for a final with 3.7 million. 

While just brief clips posted on social media of the intense drama on Temptation Island have been whipping up a storm recently – with one 38 second video attracting more than 120million viewers lapping up the chaos.

The show first went viral on X after José Carlos Montoya was made to stand helplessly in front of a screen while he watched his girlfriend, Anita Williams, be intimate with another contestant on the show.

He buckled to his knees and shouted at the screen as the video continued to play.

The scenes prompted him to run across the shoreline and towards the villa while a presenter chaotically called after him. 

She exclaimed: ‘Por favor Montoya, por favor!’ which in English means: ‘Please Montoya, please!’

The footage was posted on X recently and went viral, accumulating 93.7million views and thousands of likes and reposts.

It led to the phrase ‘Montoya por favor’ being used repeatedly by fans online, including by companies.

Shortly after, viewers witnessed an outrageous revenge twist which saw Anita sob as she watched José cheat on her in graphic footage.

In the clip, Anita stood with tears streaming down her face while three other women watched the footage and discussed what they could see on the screen. 

Neither Anita or José were allowed to watch the update videos of one another themselves due to breaking rules, so rely on the other contestants to describe the scenes, according to LadBible.

Anita stood with her back turned away from the video as her makeup ran and her fellow contestants watched on open-mouthed. 

She glanced at the screen occasionally while scenes of José laying in bed with another woman were shown as she continued to sob.

Various other moments were shown, including José in a pool with a woman, and dancing in costumes.

The clip, posted on X, attracted 14.8million views and thousands of likes and reposts, while hundreds swarmed to the comments to discuss the chaos. 

Even more clips have exploded online too, including one showing contestant Sthefany reacting to her boyfriend Tadeo’s antics. 

The footage, also posted on X, played out the moment Sthefany watched as Tadeo relaxed in a swimming pool with another woman. 

The pair hugged in the pool before the female co-star went underwater as Tadeo smiled. 

Sthefany, wearing a red maxi dress and her long hair styled in tousled waves, began to shout and scream as the scenes unfolded, with the pair getting more and more intimate.

Her co-stars sat, all looking shocked, as Sthefany’s reaction became more heated and she stood up to shout frantically towards a presenter, gesturing at the screen. 

One post that contained the clip received over 120million views alongside thousands of likes, reposts and comments on X.

Reaction to scandalous cheaters, an epic revenge and a shocking swimming pool moment – this seems to be what people really want from reality TV.

An impressive 40.9% of 13 to 24-year-old viewers watch Temptation Island, according to Spanish publication El Pais.

While The Times reported that Mitele, which streams the show, had record streaming figures in January. 

Spanish news site, OelDiaro.es reported how an episode broadcast on February 12 saw 1,789,000 viewers tune in to watch the instalment – the most to date.

So far, this season of Temptation Island has averaged at 1,442,000 viewers on Telecinco – the highest since the third series – and the entire finale is yet to air.

Though in a similar way to Love Island, the Spanish show did start off much stronger with an average of 3,026,000 views in it’s first series.

It seems Love Island lacks the jaw-dropping chaos and sensationalism that Temptation Island has recently spoiled viewers with – and if they’ve developed a taste for it, the bar is only going to be raised.