Inside Cosmopolitan’s ‘Love Island USA’ Season 8 Reunion Watch Party

To close the last chapter of another great season of reality TV, Cosmo returned to one4one sports bar in NYC for the Love Island USA season 8 reunion watch party, bringing the summer full circle after holding our premiere watch party at the same locale just a few weeks prior. It was a fast summer, but a lot has happened: Couples formed, fell in love, and split, while several Islanders discovered that “exclusive” and “boyfriend/girlfriend” are apparently two very different things.

As guests arrived, Trinity Tatum and Bryce Alakai’s new episode of Blind Date played across the screens on every wall. Cosmo’s fall issues featuring JENNIE were displayed shoulder to shoulder in a row beneath them, while laminated portraits of the finalists were fanned across the lamp-lit tables like a very attractive deck of playing cards.

Rianne Akindele

Upstairs, people gathered and chatted around the pool table, trading reunion predictions, while downstairs, the more dedicated viewers snagged prime spots on curved leather couches facing a cinema-sized screen. Smaller televisions covered the surrounding walls, meaning there was virtually nowhere to look without encountering an Islander.

Rianne Akindele

Before the reunion drama kicked off, Cosmo editors Samantha Olson and Aiyana Ishmael got the party started with a game of superlatives using the Islander cards. They called out categories, and guests raised the card of whoever they believed deserved the title. Carl Schmidt was the clear pick for hottest guy, while the vote for hottest girl concluded with a unanimous consensus: All were absolutely stunning. Brinity, unsurprisingly, swept the room as the couple everyone believed should have taken the crown (so it’s good they did!). Photographer Rianne Akindele snapped Polaroids throughout the night, perfectly capturing the reunion energy.

Rianne Akindele

Guests included creators Nazlia Yunus and Ocean Vanexel, model and ballerina Camri Hewie, writer and comedian Jazmine Brown, and Cosmo’s editor-in-chief Willa Bennet. Some arrived fluent in every coupling and betrayal; others couldn’t have named a single Islander. By the time Ariana Madix and Andy Cohen signed off, the divide had disappeared. Everyone gasped at the pointed digs, laughed at Sincere’s compilation of ridiculous analogies and metaphors, and cheered as Kenzie did the splits, proving once again there is no better place to watch Love Island than at a Cosmo party.

Rianne Akindele

Rianne Akindele

Rianne Akindele