“Love Island SA” is heading towards the final stretch, however, one of the Islanders - Millie Terblanché - has landed in hot water for making a rape joke.
In one of the recent episodes, Tania Kera was shown at the fire pit with Millie discussing her situation with Ross Marshall who she’s currently in a coupling with.
Ross has been very open on the show that he is a virgin and that he is waiting for marriage before having sex.
In the conversation with Millie, Taina, said: “If I’m being honest I feel Ross is still young, you know what I mean. A lot of people when they’e 20 are gonna save themselves.“
Millie starts laughing and then says “rape him“ as a response.
Rape jokes are never funny#LoveIslandSA #millie #KeepTheEnergy pic.twitter.com/rOTzwTh1So
— KEEP THE ENERGY (@KEEPTHEENERGY1) April 6, 2021
Fans of the show were very unhappy with Millie making a rape joke and shared their displeasure online.
Millie must know someone in production because there is no way this girl survived so long and is still on after making those rape jokes #LoveIslandSA
— friend of Dorothy (@FriendOfFranky) April 6, 2021
Making rape jokes and laughing about it isn't funny, it's sad that they know they're on TV and they don't care about what they say, I'm not watching this show unless millie and tania are removed from the show or apologized @LoveIsland_SA#LoveIslandSA
— brent rivera but from SA (@DietrichAhnreeq) April 6, 2021
TW: Rape
— abiha. (@abihabhatti) April 6, 2021
so there’s a clip of Millie from #LoveIslandSA telling Tania to rape Ross as a “joke” because he wants to save himself for marriage and I’m just appalled and dumbstruck at how Millie is still on this show AND the #LoveIslandSA team kept that in the show during editing
Millie made a rape joke and Love Island edited that part out of the episode so no one would notice ?😟
— maddy perez (@reesekellyy) April 6, 2021
UK love island kicked somebody off for saying ‘cunt punt’ but Millie makes a rape joke & she’s still on the show & thriving? in the rape capital of the world? the producers should do better.
— jordyn (@jordsbby) April 7, 2021
In a statement sent to IOL Entertainment, an M-Net spokesperson said that they are sorry about the utterance, confirmed that Millie has been reprimanded and that they have issued sensitivity training for the cast and crew.
See the full statement below:
“M-Net is aware of the comments by one of Love Island SA’s contestants. M-Net is a strong proponent of a violence-free South Africa and abhors any form of gender- based violence.
“While we note that the contestant referred to the matter in jest, we strongly condemn the trivialising of such grave matters and apologise to our viewers and stakeholders for exposing them to such.
“We have reprimanded the contestant and implemented sensitivity training for the whole cast and crew.
“All contestants are being supported by a qualified psychologist. We have also removed the offensive language from all repeat broadcasts of the programme.”