Love Island USA’s Huda Addresses the Heart Rate Challenge

Huda Mustafa is out of the villa and sharing her side of the story.

When Us Weekly caught up with the 24-year-old reality star on Tuesday, July 15, asking about the now-infamous Heart Rate Challenge — Islanders performing stripteases and routines for each other while wearing heart rate monitors to see who raises each other’s heart rate the most — was a must.

“I’m a very performative human being, and in challenges, I’m trying to win,” Huda began.

Fans saw Huda’s fellow Islanders accuse her of going “too far” in the challenge, partially with Chelley’s connection, Ace. As a result, fans began to speculate that there was something that didn’t make the air.

“The thing I did with Jeremiah in the dominant/submissive challenge — the tongue thing, where I licked all the way up [their body] — I did that with every single guy [in the Heart Rate Challenge],” Huda told Us. “People were like, ‘Oh no!’ Every dude was very happy during the whole thing. Afterwards, they saw the girl’s reactions and that’s when they’re like, ‘She was doing too much.’”

She noted that it was a big topic of conversation in the villa.

“It wasn’t personal. I wasn’t trying to take someone’s man, I wasn’t trying to do anything like that,” she said. “It was literally a challenge that I was trying to win. I didn’t even win!”

Huda was also a hot topic on social media because she’s a single mother, sharing a daughter, who turned 5 on Wednesday, July 16, with ex Noah Sheline.

“When I did the interview for Love Island, I had the mindset of, ‘I’m a mom. That’s fine. I’m a single mother. That’s also fine.’ That doesn’t mean that you have to halt your life or you have to stop your dreams from coming true,” she said.

When Huda’s daughter was born, she said she “put a halt on [her life].”

“She still does have a hundred percent of my focus, but now that she’s a little bit older, it’s easier for me to navigate self-care and the doing things that I wanna do,” she explained.

Huda recorded voice notes and videos for her daughter to watch when she was away and also left gifts.

“I wanted to make sure that she was well taken care of and that she didn’t forget that her mommy loves her,” she said. “[And going on the show], I wanted people to understand that you can be a single mother and still do the things you wanna do in life. It doesn’t make you a bad mom.”

After returning to the villa with 2.7 million followers, Huda concluded, “I think it was a good decision, honestly. I mean, I can provide for my daughter more than I could ever before. And that is truly a blessing. I’m more than thankful for that. Did I ever think that that was gonna happen? No, not at all. The whole goal of walking in there was to find the love of my life.”

Huda expected “backlash” for her decision to go on the show, but it’s been worse than she anticipated.

“I’ve been hearing people call CPS,” she told Us, revealing that her daughter’s father has been “very supportive” and “had [her] back this whole time.”

“[We] have a really, really good coparenting relationship,” she explained. “She’s in really good hands. … People go on shows all the time, and it’s just because this is the one show where you don’t have your phone, it doesn’t make it wrong. It’s just like taking a mini vacation.”