Like many fans of old Twitter, I still haven’t completely weaned myself off X, even though I miss the days of the blue bird. As such, I was in the middle of my routine evening scroll—glancing briefly at posts about Elon Musk, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift—when I suddenly came across something unexpected.
It was a clip in Spanish about someone named Montoya. Though my feed is generally in English and U.S. centric, I am a Spanish speaker, so this clip popping up wasn’t too weird. What did surprise me was the account that shared it and the fact that English speakers were apparently super into Montoya’s plight—even though many probably had no idea what he was saying.
“You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand.” The clip was shared by @PopCulture2000s, an account that has a unique talent for identifying viral content old and new. As an example, @PopCulture2000s' recent posts include a famous 2001 photo of Britney Spears with a yellow snake around her shoulders, a clip of Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun” song, and a photo of Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass in the heyday of Gossip Girl.
You’ll notice that the posts above feature artists or celebrities well-known in the U.S. among English speakers. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the account share content in a language that wasn’t English, though I could be wrong. So, when I saw @PopCulture2000s share a clip from a Spanish reality show, I briefly thought X was broken. It was not.
“this is CINEMA…Montoya..the tension… you don’t need to speak spanish to understand, this is insane,” the person behind @PopCulture2000s wrote.
La isla de las tentaciones. Of course, @PopCulture2000s is right, though speaking Spanish does help you get a bit more context. As many correctly guessed, the clip is from Spain’s version of Temptation Island, a reality show that tests whether couples can stay true to one another in the face of temptation. Couples travel to a tropical island where they’re separated into two groups and proceed to live together with people who try to “tempt” them into having an affair.
The reality show was revived by USA Today in 2019, where it aired for five seasons. The show was acquired by Netflix and will debut a seventh season in March of this year.
The clip. Let’s talk about the clip itself. Again, it’s not necessary to understand the language to get the gist of what’s going on. In the clip, a man they call Montoya is devastated to see his girlfriend Anita cheat on him and have sex with Manuel, one of her seducers. It takes only seconds for him to go from 1 to 100.
“You’ve shattered me,” he screams at the screen, which shows his girlfriend tearing up and being comforted by another man. “Cry! Cry with that wreck of a man, cry! That’s what you want in your life.”
Things then take a turn. After watching Anita continue to make out with Manuel, he runs off to the beach. The cameraman follows him as he screams, and lightning goes off in the background.

While it’s not clear what Montoya is doing at first, we soon see that he’s heading to the other villa, where his girlfriend and the other guy are having sex. In the last moments, we see the Anita and her paramour freeze, almost as if they heard him.
“I thought Bro was running straight into the sea at first,” a user said on X.
Who is Montoya? José Carlos Montoya forms part of one of the seven couples on the show. He’s a 31-year-old from Seville, Spain that works as a hotel concierge. Montoya is also an aspiring musician. He went on the show with his girlfriend, the 27-year-old Anita Williams, who works in sales. They've been together for about a year.
Although Montoya went viral for this moment of despair, it’s far from his only notable performance. The man has quickly become known on the show for ripping his shirts in half in the heat of the moment, fainting, and kicking iPads.
“Oh I’m about to tune tf in.” The clip with Montoya quickly racked up likes and views. Many people wanted to know what happened next—the episode ended on the biggest cliffhanger—and some even used AI to translate the clip. Others called for “Justice for Montoya.” As of publication, the clip had been liked by more than 123,000 times and viewed 15 million times. “Montoya Temptation Island” even saw a surge in interest on Google Search in the U.S. on Wednesday.
English speakers in the U.S. weren’t the only ones transfixed by Montoya, though. The clip also appeared to take off in France and Italy, where some users said they were brushing up on their Spanish.
“The cameraman who follows him running, the tense music, the presenter who tries to catch him ‘Why are you running Montoya?’, the live scene 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 this is REAL CINEMA,” a user said in French, according to Google Translate.
Montoya, the sequel. The Internet didn't have to wait long to find out what happened after Montoya ran over to the villa where his girlfriend was staying. On Wednesday, @PopCulture2000s followed up an update. Anita heard Montoya's screams while she was having sex with Manuel and ran out to see what was happening.
"Fuck him! You're going to regret it for the rest of your life," Montoya screams. "They've shattered me."
Montoya proceeds to run back to the beach, throw himself on the sand and scream, "Why?" He screams so loud that Anita hears him and decides to answer.
"You know very well why," she screams. "You don't deserve any one of my tears."
And while it may seem like they're both done with each other, things are never what they seem on reality TV. Moments later, Anita runs towards Manuel and hugs him—interacting with your partner in person is against the rules—and cries that she wants to leave with him.
Some things are universal. In the end, fixation on Montoya and his pain is an example of the Internet at its best. Yes, you read that correctly. At its best, the Internet inspires people to obsess about something silly, learn something new (like a language), and have conversations about a shared passion. When asked about why they had chosen to share the Montoya clips, @PopCulture 2000s summed it up in one sentence.
"montoya is the moment!" they said via X DMs.
Perhaps the best thing about this clip is that it’s not related to politics or the product of an ad campaign. It’s simply drama, and history reminds us that humans absolutely love drama.
Images | Telecinco
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