Ariana Madix did the impossible. Can anyone else?
For all the riches and notoriety reality TV’s hottest network has to offer its desperate supplicants, the price for Bravo fame is the soul. Some of the network’s greatest stars have gladly bought into this weighty bargain, marrying themselves to the great cultural machine with ease. Like Teresa Giudice, who has repeatedly stated she has no loftier ambitions than The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and will quit when they fire her. Other notable stars have railed against the strictures of this covenant, justified or not. The current cycle of lawsuits, like those of Nene Leakes, or Bethenny Frankel’s various threats, are emblematic of this growing discontent.
It is a problem most evident on Bravo, but the gravity well of reality television persists throughout its history. For all the fame they found in the MTV era, the cast of Jersey Shore has only another reboot or spin-off to aspire to.
Imagine my surprise, then, when Ariana Madix became the most famous woman on Planet Earth in 2023 — for being cheated on by a 40-year-old, washed-up model in a cover band, no less. Post Scandoval, as it’s been dubbed, Madix’s profile exploded, simultaneously uplifting Vanderpump Rules and the network she’d worked under for a decade. The show had always enjoyed modest success, garnering mainstream brand partnerships and a level of notoriety best evidenced by the “if you know you know”-type press it would receive from publications like New York Magazine.
After a record-breaking season for the show and network, critics and fans alike waited to see what else Madix would do. A landmark run in Broadway’s Chicago and ABC’s Dancing With the Stars already on her trophy shelf, news of her new job hosting Peacock’s Love Island USA felt, at first, like the initial stages of the downturn. Not that it’s a minor gig by any means, but the stateside adaptation of the international television craze has never quite broken through in the same way as its UK counterpart. Perhaps the talent pool wasn’t the same, perhaps American tastes are harder to please with dating competition shows, but former host Sarah Hyland struggled to get liftoff after taking the job from Arielle Vandenberg in the show’s fourth season.
There’s been six seasons now, and it’s this one we’re all most likely hearing of for the first time. Peacock doesn’t release official streaming numbers, but the number has doubled.
What makes Madix’s run noteworthy (already) is that she didn’t need the show — the show needed her. Judging by the increased attention it got in the wake of her casting, and social metrics around the show, Love Island USA has been fundamentally changed Ariana Madix. She has, undeniably, the star power to drag a flagship franchise behind her. In an age of ubiquity for the format, it’s spectacular to witness. In fact, “spectacular” pales in the shadow of Madix, Bravo’s most unassuming A-lister.
The hosting job on Love Island is mostly an aesthetics challenge. Good outfits, big hair, funny one-liners, a winning smile. Madix has these on lock. She’s aided in part by the work she put into reinventing her personal style over the last year, defying my own expectations for what she might pull out of the hat on Peacock’s dime. I mean, the fashions are unreal, however cheap the clothing associated withLove Island might read at times. Madix’s gold lame Di Petsa dress from the first episode is already the most iconic television look of the year, a highlight of the decade. The color-blocked chainmail mini was also a highlight, reminiscent of Dua Lipa’s archival Versace fits. There’s also the tulle train and four hundred pounds of hair she wore to the lingerie party, or the hot pink, stoned Retrofete maxi with the crystal fronds and slicked back pony.
More recently, at a recoupling ceremony post-Casa that will go down as one of the most buzzed-about Love Island episodes ever, she rocked a LaPointe two piece set in highlighter yellow that sent my watch party into hysterics. There is no one as jaded as I when it comes to the things people put on their bodies, and there I was, mouth agape, sweating.
It’s not just the outfits, though. Madix’s mere presence in the villa has had an unmistakable effect on the contestants. They seem — more than the previous five seasons — charged by their proximity to her. The most recognizably scorned woman on the planet, risen above the wreckage of her life in the tightest little dresses anybody has ever seen. She’s like if the Energizer Bunny knew about the SSENSE sale and was also a hot human woman.
As the season wanes post-Casa Amor, I’m left to wonder: will anybody ever do it again? Is the hole she smashed on exit from the atmosphere around Planet Bravo big enough to allow others to escape with her, or will they all get fried via the rising global heat index? Until her star sailed off into the distant sky, I’d think: if it hasn’t happened by now, it won’t ever. I’ve been proven wrong once already, sure, but perhaps she’s just adjusted my thinking a bit. There will certainly never be anyone else quite like Ariana Madix. If you squint at night, you can see her out there, sparkling beyond the Milky Way.
