Cierra Ortega’s social media team broke down their strategy for her online presence — including how they weathered viewer backlash — just days before her racism scandal led to her Love Island USA exit.

Cierra’s friend and the person running her Instagram, MJ Hedderman, did a tell-all interview with Cosmopolitan in June before Cierra prematurely left the villa. MJ explained how she was trying to make Cierra’s content stand out amid her rise to stardom.

“We have a group chat called Got a Text, and I send them anything I think might be slightly problematic. Like, ‘Hey, how do you feel about me calling [her onscreen partner] Nic ‘Boo Boo the Clown’?’ They’re like, ‘Go for it!’” MJ recalled. “But yeah, no one was clawing for it. On TikTok, I’ve been getting comments from people being like, ‘I would kill to do this.’ And I’m like, ‘Girl, I’m doing an unpaid internship.’ But I’m having such a blast, so I can’t complain.”

MJ admitted she originally didn’t have “any social strategy” in place.

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“For the first post, I screenshotted some things from the Love Island Instagram and was like, ‘Who do we think the hottest in the villa is?’ Then my emotions got involved when I saw that Nic was treating Cierra like an option,” she explained. “My first thought was like, ‘Girl, we need to hire an Etsy witch to find her real man.’”

Cierra entered as a bombshell during season 7 of Love Island USA before forming a connection with Nic Vansteenberghe. But while viewers were watching Cierra and Nic explore their connection on screen, her social media posts took consistent jabs at him, which MJ took full credit for.

“If they do end up together, I will own it! I’m not deleting any of the posts — I called him Boo Boo the Clown for a reason. I will stick to my guns. But I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I’m looking at it from a best friend’s perspective, not from objectively watching the show,” she shared. “When I see her crying about someone who can’t commit, it literally makes me see red. … But I have to remind myself, it is just a show.”

MJ acknowledged that with Cierra’s popularity came some strong fan opinions as well.

“This is not necessarily easy, especially given the number of followers that she’s gained in the past week — she’s gained, I think, 100,000 in less than eight hours — but it helps. Like, knowing how to block certain hate words and block comments,” she noted. “The second I see any type of hateful comment, I take all the keywords and I put them into the hidden word option on Instagram, so then no one can comment anything terrible.”

MJ continued: “The beauty of working in this industry is that you kind of become numb to it after a while. You realize that the people sending hate aren’t saying that because they genuinely hate you. Maybe they do, but it’s probably because they don’t love themselves enough. It’s definitely challenging at times, dealing with the influx of people, but it’s manageable.”

At the time, MJ said Cierra “was literally getting death threats in her DMs,” adding, “I feel like one way to combat that beforehand is by creating a good perception on her Instagram. Her DMs are insane. … I just know she’s going to freak out when she’s out of the villa.”

MJ was also asked whether she compares how she runs Cierra’s account to the social media presence for other Islanders.

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“I’m booked and busy with this account. I do check them out to see where they are growth-wise,” she said. “It’s not a competition, but I am a very competitive person, and since it’s not my account I’m very much looking at it like a business where I’m like, ‘OK, how much growth can we get in six weeks?’”

One week after MJ’s interview, Cierra came under fire for a resurfaced post where she used a racial slur. Before Cierra was officially out of the villa, MJ announced she was taking “a step back” amid the drama.

“Hi guys, I see your comments concerning someone I love and care about. I want to be clear that I do not condone racism, bigotry or hate in any way shape or form, nor was I aware of the recent screenshots until they were posted,” read MJ’s Instagram Story. “I discovered it at the same time as all of you did.”

MJ continued: “I cannot speak for anybody or make any statements besides my own, and decided to take a step back from running her account. I was asked by her family to turn off comments and refrain from speaking on her behalf. This situation has been really difficult, and I’m still processing everything.”

During the Sunday, July 6, episode of the Peacock series, narrator Iain Stirling confirmed that Cierra “left the villa due to a personal situation,” which meant Nic was “officially single.” Cierra, who didn’t immediately receive her phone after exiting the villa, has yet to publicly comment on the drama.