Kaylor Hints at Why She Broke Up With Aaron Before Love Island USA Reunion

They were the first Love Island USA Season 6 couple to announce their split after the finale, but the end of their relationship was a long time coming. Kaylor Martin, a 22-year-old from Connellsville, Pennsylvania, and Aaron Evans, a 26-year-old from North Devon, United Kingdom, met on Love Island USA Season 6, where they were coupled up from day one. They were dumped on day 30 at the last elimination before the finale.

Though Kaylor and Aaron tried to stay together for the first few weeks, Kaylor announced to fans the day the Love Island USA Season 6 reunion filmed that she and Aaron were “done.” “Aaron and I are not OK,” she told fans outside her hotel in New York City in a TikTok video. “We are done, we are not together.”

The confirmation came a week after Kaylor called herself “single” in a TikTok video on August 11, 2024, in which she lip-synced a quote from Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. “If you are single, there is one thing you should always take out with you on a Saturday night. Your friends,” Kaylor lip-synced. Kaylor captioned the video, “Hard post,” hinting that the TikTok was a hard launch of her and Aaron’s split. So why did Kaylor and Aaron break up? Well, if you watched Love Island USA Season 6, the reason isn’t surprising.

Two weeks before the Love Island USA Season 6 reunion filmed, Kaylor told the “BFFs” podcast on July 31, 2024, that she and Aaron were on the outs after she finally watched Love Island USA Season 6’s Casa Amor episodes, in which Aaron was intimate with fellow contestant Daniela Ortiz-Rivera without Kaylor knowing.

“My perspective definitely has changed since whenever I was in the villa to now, just because I see absolutely everything Aaron did in Casa Amor, and I feel like the little things kind of mean more to me,” Kaylor said, admitting that she was “emotionally drained” from the Aaron drama. “Like the stomach kisses in the morning and the breakfast and then also I saw Aaron break things off with Daniela and then…lean in for a kiss, and all of those things have changed my perspective.”

She continued, “So leaving and watching it and hearing my girlfriends be like, ‘Kaylor, what the fuck? You didn’t stick up for yourself. You weren’t there for you.’ And also I relate to them, because I feel like, most of all, I feel like I wasn’t there for myself and that – it definitely hurt and I definitely feel differently [than] I did in the villa about everything.”

Kaylor told the podcast that, while she and Aaron were still together at the time, the episodes made her want to “take a step back” from her relationship with Aaron and reevaluate how he treated her. “I just wanna take things really slow. I don’t wanna end things, because I know what Aaron and I had was true and real, but I feel like I just gave him chance after chance … and it wasn’t even all of the Casa thing, it was just more so him not taking accountability like Kordell [Beckham] did, which really hurt.” she said.

She continued, “I don’t wanna give up on us but I definitely have my doubts and I was telling Aaron the other day, I have trust issues now and I don’t wanna be that toxic person in this relationship.”

Aaron, for his part, told the podcast that he wanted to “make it work” with Kaylor. He also stated that he was confident they’d “be able to get through,” a statement fans now know was incorrect. “I’m willing to work through it and I completely understand why Kaylor feels the way she does. Her feelings are completely valid,” he said. “I understand why she’s got doubts, I understand why she’s got trust issues, I understand why all of America doesn’t like me because I don’t even like me, watching it all back, I hated watching [those] clips back. It was actually horrible, so I completely understand how and why she feels the way she does.”

Kaylor also hinted that the reason she broke up with Aaron was due to the mistakes she made on Season 6 at a 92NY Love Island USA panel on August 16, 2024. “Listen, I’m very lucky. I’m 22 years old, I’m going to go through heartbreak, falling in love — all of it,” she said. “I know we all have maybe been there once or twice, and I’m glad I have been through it and I’m learning from this situation. And I’m single!”

Kaylor’s best friend and her and Aaron’s Love Island USA Season 6 cast mate, Liv Walker, also suggested to Us Weekly prior to the finale that she didn’t think that Aaron and Kaylor would last in the real world after she also watched what happened during Casa Amor. “I don’t like how he takes her personality of putting others before her for granted. I’ve seen situations where he’ll throw in the word ‘love’ when they’re kind of having a little argument and it’s like, ‘That’s not the right time,’” Liv said before referencing Love Island USA Season 6 winners Kordell Beckham and Serena Page, who also had a Casa Amor cheating scandal but recovered to eventually win the season. “I know, maybe, he said it out of emotion and none of us are perfect, but actions do speak louder than words. And we saw that with Kordell.”

Love Island USA is available to stream on Peacock.