Being Kenzie Kind of Rocks

The second line in Love Island season eight contestant Kenzie Annis’s Instagram bio is “:D i hope you smile today.” Well, mission accomplished, because for the entire hour and change that Kenzie appears on Call Her Daddy to discuss her Love Island run with host Alex Cooper, I was smiling from ear to ear. In a frank and exuberant conversation, it’s clear that Kenzie doesn’t regret much, if anything, from her time in Fiji. In a postseason press rollout that opened with an immediate pledge for civility, Kenzie’s comfort and ease with her own conduct comes as welcome relief. She approaches her sit-down with Cooper with an optimistic frankness, keen to take responsibility for her actions and boost her fellow (female) Islanders as much as she can.

In a season that started to be defined by the Islanders throwing the word lustful around toward each other, Kenzie’s fervent enthusiasm for pulling the boys for a chat — regardless of whether she was in a couple — got her in trouble a handful of times, despite her insistence that a kiss is like a handshake to her. Cooper confronts Kenzie with this behavior, and every time she’s forced to reckon with how she moved in the villa, Kenzie proves herself open and good-natured about all of it, reflecting on her actions with humility. Despite coupling with several men on the show, Kenzie insists much of it was motivated by a desire to talk and get to know people. Her attraction was mirrored in her potential partner’s interest in her. “Everyone’s hot,” she argues. “Say something about my intelligence, say something about my hobbies, say something about me and who I am.”

Mostly what Cooper affirms throughout their conversation is that Kenzie is who we saw on television, someone who cracks up when thinking back on her Casa Amor “rage splits.” When elaborating on the ways in which she felt disrespected by Corbin and KC during the livestream, Kenzie is insistent that she doesn’t “fuck with that energy,” crediting her parents for her sense of self-worth. This is someone who, despite a torrent of Instagram love and hate in the days after leaving the show, proves herself grounded enough to know who she is. “My man will never talk down to me or in front of his friends. Don’t matter if he’s with his boys. Your man can’t say whatever he wants — that’s so disrespectful. No woman deserves to be treated like that,” she explains. (When Cooper follows up to ask how Kenzie would deal with that in the real world, she says she’d opt for a hard block — “Cold turkey, bye,” she says with a smile.) There’s a self-confidence that’s refreshing in a season where so many of the Islanders questioned their self-worth.

Part of what Cooper does so well in their conversation is contextualize Kenzie’s Love Island time against what’s going on in the U.K. season right now — where lustfulness is not quite so punished or looked down upon as it was this past season in the U.S. Kenzie holds very little bitterness over this type of language, assured in her own behavior, even when it wasn’t always the best. Though she seems genuinely remorseful about how she behaved with bombshell Caleb, Kenzie is mostly defined through her joy. When Cooper asks who she wishes she would have kissed, she thinks on it for a moment before admitting, “I kissed everyone.” She pauses to reflect if that’s true, then doubles down, practically screaming into the mic, “I KISSED EVERYONE!” That’s the kind of spirit that feels essential on Love Island. Maybe she can bring it to Dancing With the Stars next.