7 Messy Reality Shows To Watch After 'Love Island USA'

When it comes to messy reality shows, Are You the One? (2014) is top tier in delivering drama for a prize of 1 million dollars. Airing on MTV, it is a dating reality TV show where a matchmaking algorithm secretly pairs up 20 single men and women. To win the money, they have to get to know each other, pair up, and then go through a test to see if they “are the one?” The twist is that everyone has to match for them to win the money at the end. 

Think of this show as if Love Island USA were infused with the messiness of Jersey Shore (2009). There were blowouts like I’ve never seen before; inhibitions were gone, and even security had to get involved because the delusion was strong with some of these contestants. But it reached another level of unhinged when Season 8 had an exclusively LGBTQ+ and sexually fluid cast of contestants. That’s when there were no true limitations. I fear no other TV show has ever managed to create such a memorable season.

When it comes to reality TV, 90 Day Fiancé (2014) is a classic and almost essential viewing if you love the genre. It started in 2014 and has multiple spin-offs that include: 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? (2016), 90 Day Fiancé: What Now? (2017), and 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way (2019). The bare bones synopsis is that overseas fiancés travel to the US to live with their partners for the first time. At the end of the 90 days, they must decide if they’ll get married or send the fiancée back home. 

Personally, this is the show that I can’t keep up with, and it’s 100% due to the amount of lore, timelines, and fan-favorites that require dedication to stay in the know. Notable relationships that surpassed the show and entered into mainstream were Big Ed and Rose in Season 4 of the other spin-off titled 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days (2017), Danielle and Mohamed in Season 2, and Alexei and Loren in Season 3 of the OG series.

Basically, if you want reality TV drama that lasts more than a couple of weeks in the summer, this franchise will keep you busy.

No other show on this list has a history like Temptation Island (2019). The show first aired on Fox, and it featured four unmarried couples who traveled to an island to test their relationship. Oh, how do they test these relationships? By separating the men and women and making them co-mingle with sexy singles, of course! It aired for three seasons before moving to the USA Network for a revival for five seasons. Then, it moved to Netflix for Season 9 for another revival.

Temptation Island’s (2025) move to Netflix is where the show reached its peak. Technically Season 9, but also technically Season 1, it introduced the show to a new audience. But it was also a case study of what it means to be dating in 2026. And ladies and gentlemen, the pickings are slim. The real highlight of the series, though, is host Mark L. Walberg, no relation to Mark Walberg. This Mark is kind, considerate, and pushes the contestants to be a little more introspective about their relationship, needs, and how they’ve grown. He’s top-tier host material.

Trust me when I say that when it comes to messy shows, The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On (2022) has nothing on The Ultimatum: Queer Love (2023). Both have similar concepts. It features couples at a crossroads; one ready to marry and the other not so much. Over the course of the show, they have trial marriages with each other’s partners and the partner they came in with to see a glimpse of their future. At the end, they decide whether they want to marry or move on.

Just like Are You the One? Season 8, The Ultimatum: Queer Love is superior because everyone is an option. That opens the door for more connections but also more chaos, something that I feel like Love Island USA Season 8 would benefit from because Bryce & Zach and Melanie & Aniya had undeniable chemistry that would’ve made for an even more successful season. As for which season to watch for Queer Love, both. Just do both. Trust me. It’s so messy and proves that whether you’re straight or LGBTQ+, all relationships can have drama to watch.

If you want to understand the lore behind what makes Love Island USA host Ariana Madix so iconic, then you need to watch Vanderpump Rules (2013). This one leans into more reality instead of reality dating. But romantic relationships are key to the story being told of the Hollywood restaurant that The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2010) Lisa Vanderpump opens and the staff that runs it. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably heard about the huge “Scandoval” cheating scandal that involved Madix, Tom Sandoval, and Raquel Leviss in 2023. That happened around Season 10 of the show, and the blowout between Madix and Sandoval is something to marvel at because it reverberated throughout the show and changed the direction of Madix’s life. 

When it comes to reality dating shows on Netflix, Love is Blind (2020) sets the standard. It asks the question: Is love truly blind? And they test that by bringing a bunch of singles to an experiment where they get to know each other site unseen. If they find someone they click with, they propose, meet up, and try to figure out if looks really do matter, with the end goal being marriage.

Like Love Island USA, this gets the internet buzzing anytime it’s on because of how invested people get in the relationships, but also how things change when the couples get back into the real world after seeing the person they’re going to marry. While there is drama, which I love, those first couple of seasons were absolute magic because they were along for the ride with us, and no one really knew if this would work. 

Despite all the spin-offs that have come from this show, trust me when I say that Season 1’s Lauren and Cameron are something you need to experience spoiler-free.

Like Love is Blind, Too Hot to Handle (2020) is only good in the first two to three seasons. Everything afterward, the contestants are too aware of the reality series and the fun is sucked right out of it. But if you’re looking for something chaotic that runs in the same vein as Love Island USA and its consistent living in bikinis and being hot singles together, then this might be the show to check out. 

Too Hot to Handle has a simple concept: A bunch of singles are basically tricked into thinking they’re going to a sexy reality series with a bunch of singles. But the plot twist is… there’s no sex allowed. Correction. There are no intimate relations allowed. And if you have any sort of intimate contact while trying to learn about each other and yourself, you lose money from the grand prize. You can imagine how little people cared, especially in the first couple of seasons, and how many rules were broken. Reality TV gold.