We’re going to need a bit of time to get over this one
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY NETFLIX
Over the last 24 hours, you’ve probably heard the sound of sapphics wailing around the world. Netflix’s beloved messy reality TV show The Ultimatum: Queer Love has been cancelled after just its second season.
The queering of Netflix’s hit Ultimatum franchise was truly groundbreaking when it was first released in 2023. The concept was fairly simple. Six couples would come onto the show with one thing in common: one person wanted to get married and the other was reluctant. In true reality TV style, the only way to solve this dispute is by breaking up, dating other people and then deciding whether they should tie the knot.
After only two series, the show has been cancelled according to Variety. This cancellation is just another casualty of the #CancelYourGays trend, which has seen fan-favourite shows vanish way before their time. Season one of the show stayed in Netflix’s Top 10 charts for two weeks after its release. While the second series did not fare as well, it was still popular with the community.
Fans were quick to show their outrage at this decision. One wrote on X: “Don’t talk to me, the ultimatum: queer love has been cancelled.” Others have pointed out that the heterosexual version of the show will still continue to air.
Although The Ultimatum: Queer Love was messy, dramatic and sometimes hard to watch, it was the reality TV representation that we’d always craved as sapphics. The heterosexual world gets an infinite number of queer dating shows, and so losing this one feels all too deflating. Sometimes we don’t want to just rewatch the same historical film about sapphics staring longingly at each other. Maybe we do want to get stuck into the gossip about who’s kissed who and why the hell two “friends” have made a sex playlist together.
RIP, The Ultimatum: Queer Love, you’ll always be in our hearts.
DIVA magazine celebrates 31 years in print in 2025. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA+ media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
