Hugo Hammond is the resident Nice Guy on Love Island UK this season, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he might not be as sweet as he seems. He is just a hapless gym teacher with floppy curls, so I get why the women initially assumed he was the kind of guy you buddy up with and as of yet, none of them have developed feelings any deeper than that for him.
Well, not in a good way at least. During the most recent challenge of Season 7, Hugo revealed that his type is "leggy blonde not fake" and then later added that his turn offs were "fake personality and looks." Remember: almost all of these women have openly admitted to having work done, yet Hugo continued to repeat it again and again, to the point where Faye Winters and Sharon Gaffka led a charge against him, chewed him up, and attempted to "educate" him as to why women get plastic surgery. In Faye's case, she shared that her parents got her a boob job in high school because she cried every day about how she looked.
Hugo tearfully apologized, "So, again for that, I am completely sorry for using a word that really hurts you and makes you think of really negative times." The girls thanked him for listening and forgave him.
But did he listen, like, really, really? His plastic surgery comment doesn't make him a villain, but the way he did it does. Hugo is in a friendship couple with Chloe Barrows, but I'm convinced he was being purposefully mean to Faye, who ditched him for Liam. And I'm not the only one. There is one single Twitter user who agrees with me.
Then again, there were just as many people who thought Faye and Sharon "bullied" Hugo into tears, but I think he's big ol' faker. His tears looked like when some white lady starts crying after calling the cops on a Black kid for selling lemonade on their stoop. Hugo, stop playing the victim. (To be fair, the women definitely overreacted.)
Still, he seemed pretty keen to clear the air with the women, but mostly because he knew that them being angry with him would eventually get him dumped from the villa, and work against him with the audience when they're given the chance to vote people off. And as Rachel pointed out, he's "literally grafted" the two women in the villa who very clearly had work done. It doesn't help that the man who defended Hugo the most was Aaron, who called the chicks a "pack of wolves" and is turned off by arm hair.
Since I adore this show, I am choosing to hate the player and not the game.
There's also the fact that Hugo was clearly a pig in college, earnestly listened to Jake talk about not wanting to rip Liberty's clothes off and then promptly encouraged her to keep on with him early on, and in general, strikes me as the kind of man who plays nice to get in with women and then is sort of a jerk.
I know that everyone on Love Island is supposed to be sort of a jerk, but I feel like there's a reason Hugo hasn't pulled any of the women romantically so far. It's, as they say in the villa, a vibe. And not a good one.
Images: ITV