Love Island USA‘s JaNa Craig was seeing warning signs in her relationship with Kenny Rodriguez while filming Beyond the Villa before their shocking breakup.
During the Thursday, August 14, episode of the Peacock series, JaNa, 28, spoke with Leah Kateb and Serena Page after an awkward date with Kenny, 24, ended with them arguing about their future plans to live together.
“He just gave me straight eye contact, like, he just locked in. It looked like he was giving me serial killer vibes,” JaNa told her costars after her outing with Kenny was cut short. “When he shuts down, he just, like, was locked in on me.”
Leah, 26, found it “so awkward” that Kenny “was just staring and not talking.” Kenny, for his part, apologized to JaNa the day after their date and spoke with Leah’s boyfriend, Miguel Harichi, about what led to the tension.
“I was just not feeling it that night,” he explained in Thursday’s episode. “What happened was, we’re at dinner, and then I misspoke. I said, ‘Oh yeah, I told Miguel we wanted to live separate.’”
Kenny continued: “And in hindsight, she really wanted to live together. The whole time it was me that was being a bit hesitant. She made it clear, ‘No, that’s not [true].’ Then I kinda just froze, the whole night.”
While speaking to Leah and Serena, JaNa started to question her relationship with Kenny. JaNa was surprised to hear that Leah and Serena were ready to marry their respective boyfriends — Miguel and Kordell Beckham — while Kenny didn’t have any immediate plans to tie the knot.
“That definitely is some s*** that you have to figure out,” Serena told JaNa, who elaborated in a confessional, “I want to get married as soon as yesterday, but I want to go about things the right way. I wanna make sure that my partner and I always feel comfortable and it’s more of an exciting thing rather than something we just wanna drag along.”
JaNa and Kenny started dating while filming season 6 of Love Island USA in June 2024. After leaving the villa in Fiji, JaNa moved back to Las Vegas while Kenny remained in Texas. They lived in the same building — but different apartments — earlier this year while filming Peacock’s Beyond the Villa spinoff.
As cracks in the pair’s relationship were starting to show on screen, news broke that JaNa and Kenny had split.
“Hi my loves. Thank you for all your love & support. It means the world to me. As you know, Kenny and I no longer together,” JaNa wrote via Instagram in July. “Please know that I have seen all the breakup theories and none have matched up to how terrible, disgusting and disappointing it truly is. Discovering that someone you loved isn’t who you thought they were and that the relationship you thought you were building hasn’t been genuine since day one has been truly devastating. Thank you for respecting my privacy and please know as a child of God, I will always be OK.”
Kenny subsequently issued his own statement.
“The past few days have been incredibly difficult. I’ve been quietly sitting with a lot of emotions and doing my best to process everything privately,” he wrote via his Instagram Story. “Breakups are never easy, especially in the public eye. Sometimes, despite how deeply you care for someone, you come to the hard truth that the relationship was not something that could last long-term.”
Shortly after Kenny broke his silence, JaNa publicly called him out again. “Stfu you manipulative liar,” JaNa wrote via her Instagram Story. “You not taking accountability and telling people the type of person you really are is insane to me!! My first statement was me being nice. Do not piss me off.”
New episodes of Beyond the Villa air Thursdays.
Read the full article here
