Stars of BBC’s I Kissed A Girl declare: ‘You cannot cancel lesbians’

It’s the hottest June day on record, and I’m sitting down to speak to the cast of the hottest show on TV.

The first episodes of the highly anticipated I Kissed a Girl (IKAG) season 2 dropped on Tuesday, and the cast are truly wonderful.

As soon as it aired, I knew I couldn’t wait to talk to the 10 girls looking for love in an Italian masseria, and this week I got the chance.

Ashlea, 25, Elise, 24, Nikita and Faye also 24, chatted to Metro, before Ebony, 22, Tyra, 24, Renee, 25, and Imogen, 21, spoke with us separately.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t talk about this series without acknowledging that it has been axed by the BBC due to ‘funding challenges’, making this season the swan song.

‘You cannot cancel lesbians,’: said Imogen, after I brought up the show being scrapped.

Ten single girls are looking for lesbian love in the Italian countryside (Picture: BBC/Two Four/James Stack)

She was met with agreement from the others, with Tyra fervently adding: ‘You can’t cancel people. You can’t cancel their stories.’

‘This whole cancelling thing, just pushes us to be more loud and proud […] We won’t go down without a fight,’ Ebony affirmed passionately.

It’s clear how they all feel about it ending, and Faye assured me that her friends, and others in the LGBTQIA+ community, felt strongly too: ‘Everyone was angry because everyone loves the show, and it’s like something is being ripped away from us. 

You cannot cancel lesbians

‘There’s no queer representation on TV, especially not in the lesbian community, really, unless it’s fetishised femme for femme.’

I Kissed a Boy (IKAB), which alternated with I Kissed a Girl, was the first gay dating show in the UK, which is mind-boggling considering it only premiered in 2023.

Had it been on Faye’s screen when she was younger, she said: ‘I’d probably have come out a lot earlier.

Faye from Warrington calls herself a ‘lover girl who loves to flirt’ (Picture: BBC/Two Four/James Stack)

‘I mean, I wouldn’t have had to Google girls kissing girls… I would’ve been able to watch I Kissed a Girl,’ she joked.

Although Elise said she ‘couldn’t have come out any earlier’ because she did so was she was nine, the born and bred Essex girl reflected: ‘To have been able to put something on when I was younger, and go: “That’s what I’m going to be like when I grow up.” It would’ve been nice, wouldn’t it?’

And as for Renee, she simply remarked: ‘It would have just been the best entertainment for me personally. I would have just seen it as the best entertainment.’

Entertaining, it definitely is.

Episode one of each season sees five couples, matched by Dannii Minogue, coming together for the first time and meeting with a kiss. No dialogue beforehand, straight in on the lips.

What follows is nine more exciting episodes of romantic tests, friendship challenges and a lot of flirting, as the women try to survive ‘kiss-offs’ and make their way to the final.

Imogen, Ebony and Elise (L-R) are just some of the icons to be gracing our screens for the final season of I Kissed a Girl (Picture: BBC/TwoFour)

Renee called it the ‘lesbian Olympics’: ‘It’s a high stress situation, it’s very intense. Very competitive.’

Going one step further, Tyra laughed and suggested it was ‘survival of the fittest’.

As expected, emotions run high in the masseria, and some of the relationships end in tears.

Your label doesn’t excuse you from any sort of accountability or how you treat someone.

Early on, Renee is left reeling from a situation, requiring comfort from her friends on the show.

During the scene, she asks: ‘Where’s the care and compassion to take care of my feelings as a woman?’

Renee continues: ‘I feel like a lot of masculine women don’t get that grace.’

People assume Renee is a ‘stud’ but in fact, she’s not (Picture: BBC/TwoFour)

This is where the series comes into its own, as the contestants alert viewers to stereotypes and highlight nuances one might not have considered.

I asked Renee what else she’d like people to better understand about mascs (masculine women). She replied: ‘At the end of the day, we’re just women. Women have emotions. Men have emotions. All humans have emotions and should be treated equally in terms of their emotions.

‘If a female has hurt a man or woman’s feelings: masculine, feminine, whatever. They have to take accountability. Your label doesn’t excuse you from any sort of accountability or responsibility for how you treat someone you’re being intimate with.’

While watching the show, I’m constantly reminded of the edge is has over reality series like Love Island, because of the insight it delivers and the depth of emotion we see from the characters.

My chats with the cast reinforced this belief for me. I asked the women what they’d learnt about themselves by taking part.

They were broadly self-reflective, with Elise arguing: ‘I am very emotional. […] I could have handled myself better.’

Tyra joked it was ‘survival of the fittest’ in the masseria (Picture: BBC/TwoFour)

Renee claimed: ‘I learnt how to deal with rejection.

‘We all are in our little social circles wherever we’re from. I’m from London, some people from Manchester, Wales, Scotland, we all have a social circle. But I was in a new circle where maybe I wasn’t the top of the food chain, and that was a new experience for me that I’ve never experienced. 

‘It’s very humbling and I’m very grateful for it, because you should learn how to deal with rejection.’

This healthy perspective is just one of the ways this show brings a breath of fresh air to a roster of increasingly problematic reality TV shows.

It was a privilege to chat with the last cast of a programme that shouldn’t be disappearing from our screens, but as Imogen said: ‘We just need to go out with a bang,’ before Ebony added: ‘And just continue the bang, for the rest of time.’

I Kissed a Girl season 2, episodes 1-4, are available to watch on BBC iPlayer. New episodes drop on Tuesday, June 30.

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