Sydney Paight and Isaiah “Zay” Campbell had a rather rocky journey on season 4 of Love Island: USA — with the former feeling betrayed by the latter after he left her for another woman when the infamous Casa Amor week came to a close — but after making up with one another and leaving the villa hand in hand, the two lovebirds saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
While Sydney and Zay lasted the longest out of the couples from their season of Love Island: USA — outlasting both Zeta Morrison and Timmy Pandolfi and Deb Chubb and Jesse Lamont Bray — it was far from smooth sailing for this duo, with Sydney and Zay breaking up after a weekend in the Jersey Shore that changed the course of their connection once and for all.
On an episode of the Forever Unemployed podcast posted to YouTube on December 15, Zay spilled all of the tea, revealing what went wrong with his relationship. Keep scrolling to see for yourself…
Isaiah “Zay” Campbell prefaced that sharing the story of his split with Sydney on the Forever Unemployed podcast would be the first time that either half of the pair has announced their breakup to the public, before diving into the details.
“For the past five to six months, you guys have been flooding me and asking me questions through my DMs and all my socials regarding what has been going on, and I’m here to address it… It all started with an invite for my boy’s birthday to New York City. It was a great couple days, and then we had eventually drove down an hour to the Jersey Shore, so it was around 3pm when I had finally gotten to the Jersey Shore, seen the beach, had a good old time — I mean, you know, a little bit of time at least — and then we had finally went to the bar.”
As one can assume, as soon as Zay and his buddies hit the bar, things went downhill…
Chatting with fans of the Love Island franchise — as well as taking photos with them and drinking with them — Zay got carried away, admitting that this evening was the first time he had ever blacked out, waking up hungover and trying to catch his bearings. During this process, Zay noticed that he had five or six missed calls from Sydney, before realizing that she had sent him two videos that had been shared with her.
These videos painted the 22-year-old in a very bad light, showing him cheating on Sydney by smooching another woman in the bar, something he did not remember occurring the night before. Naturally, this caused Sydney to break up with Zay almost instantaneously, ultimately terminating their relationship once and for all.
“I was crying all day… I mean, all I was doing was fighting for her back the whole day, and just paragraph after paragraph just trying to figure things out… I’m just like literally writing my heart out on a script on a text message trying to tell her how I feel, about how I take it back and I wish this would never happened, and you know, I’m young and I’m dumb and I’m sorry that I blacked out. It’s not supposed to be like that.”
After sharing on the podcast that he is “not a f*****g cheater” and that he believes in loyalty, Zay wanted to make things right with Sydney by flying down to see her and fix things, however, he did not have enough money to make it happen.
“I was down bad. I had no money to go see her, because we’re a long distance relationship… I just started drinking every day. I didn’t really know what to do. She’s mad. She very much wanted her space. She wanted a break. She didn’t really want nothing to do with me because of what I had done, and I mean, I’m not going to blame her… At the end of the day, that’s what happened. I was down bad, she wasn’t answering me, we wasn’t really talking, and I had no money to go down and see her, because we had a long distance relationship.”
To conclude the conversation, Zay took accountability for his actions, encouraging fans of the Love Island franchise to support Sydney and take her side, because if the roles had been reversed, that is what he would have wanted.
While it is unclear when this weekend in the Jersey Shore occurred, it appears that both Sydney and Zay have been pursuing their own endeavors as of late. According to their respective Instagram profiles, it looks like Sydney has been partying and traveling and Zay has been modeling and focusing on his career, and we wish them nothing but the best in their individual pursuits.
To see Sydney Paight and Isaiah “Zay” Campbell’s love story (or lack thereof) from the very beginning, you can catch the entirety of Love Island: USA season 4 via Peacock.
