"I want to first start by addressing not just anyone that I have hurt or deeply offended, but most importantly, the entire Asian community. I am deeply, truly, honestly, so sorry," she said in a lengthy video.

Peacock has not clarified why Ortega left the show, but her exit occurred amid online controversy over posts she allegedly made that included a derogatory term for Chinese people.

During the Sunday, July 6, episode of “Love Island USA,” narrator Iain Stirling announced that Cierra Ortega had left the show due to a “personal situation.” Prior to her shocking exit, many fans called for Ortega’s removal after discovering that she used a slur for Chinese people in several social media posts.

Vansteenberghe had been intimate on several occasions with his former partner Cierra Ortega while taping the Peacock reality show.

Former “Love Island USA” contestant Cierra Ortega has released a video on TikTok apologizing for previously using a racial slur against Asian people.

Cierra Ortega exits "Love Island USA" after racist social media posts resurface, with her family issuing a statement asking for compassion during the controversy.

Cierra Ortega, a former contestant on season 7 of “Love Island USA,” has spoken out after abruptly leaving the show when multiple of her using a racial slur resurfaced online. Ortega, who audiences learned had left the show on Sunday, July 6, took accountability for using the offensive term in an Instagram video posted Wednesday, July 9.

The Chicago native, who is of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, said her post “not an apology video,” but rather “an accountability video.”

Love Island USA contestant Cierra Ortega has addressed her removal from the hit dating reality show. A week before the finale, Ortega was dropped from Season Seven after the surfacing of social media posts from 2015 and 2020 in which she used a racial slur toward the Asian community.