(CNN) — Cierra Ortega, whose recent dramatic exit from the popular reality series “Love Island USA” caused a stir, has broken her silence.

Viewers have been searching for answers after her exit a week before the dating show’s Season 7 finale, which the series attributed to a “personal situation.”

There was no further explanation, but social media posts from 2015 and 2023 had circulated online that appeared to show Ortega using a racial slur, according to reporting by the Daily Mail.

Ortega posted a video on social media on Wednesday and said had time to “process” what happened and made clear that she was not “the victim.”

“While I was in the villa, there were some posts that resurfaced from my past where I was very naively using an incredibly offensive and derogatory term,” she said. “

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