'Montoya, Por Favour!': How a Spanish reality show moment exploded into a viral meme worldwide

If you have been anywhere on the internet over the last several hours, you will have almost certainly seen a genuinely jaw-dropping clip from the Spanish reality show 'La Isla de las Tentaciones' in which a contestant, confronted with live footage of his girlfriend having sex with another man, absolutely loses it - and causes a cinema-worthy scene. 

The clip lasts for just over two minutes, but probably contains more drama than the entire run of Love Island.

Shot in the Dominican Republic, contestant José Carlos Montoya stands on a beach and watches as his girlfriend Anita kisses a hunky newcomer on TV.

First, he blinks in disbelief, hands over his head. Then, as the newcomer strips to his underwear, Montoya starts to scream at the TV.

The show then cuts the lights and Montoya tugs at his swimming trunks in anguish. 

As night vision footage shows them pulling the covers over their heads, an utterly crushed Montoya sinks to his knees, screaming emphatically.

And then he has enough. As lightning streaks across the sky, he sprints the entire length of a beach, screaming and crying, while Sandra Barneda, the show’s presenter, begs for him to return, yelling the now-viral words: "Montoya por favor, Montoya, por favor!"

The music swells. The drama heightens. We see Anita fully having sex with the other man. It's now an all-out session of intensity and sheer lechery. And, just as Montoya reaches the villa to confront them, the clip ends. 

There is drama, there is high drama, and then there is Montoya por favour.

From yanking on his swim shorts to frantically sprinting down a beach, José Carlos Montoya became an international sensation as videos of his emotional meltdown went viral following the moment he saw his girlfriend cheat on him via a live feed.

According to the official website of La Isla de las Tentaciones, the 30-year-old Montoya and girlfriend Anita, who's 26, have been together for one year, after meeting on another reality show and falling in "love at first sight."

Millions of people who watched the footage were left aghast - some experienced raw agony while some just couldn't comprehend such a scenario unfolding in their lives.

Others, thoroughly entertained by the spectacularly shot sequence of events, simply branded the episode "peak cinema."

Someone wrote on X: "Twitter really got along for a day over Montoya’s pain on Temptation Island Spain. The host making him watch and saying por favour. Running on the beach like Poseidon sent him. Camera crew chasing him. Lighting in the sky. His girlfriend crying and holding on to him. Peak cinema."

Popular X account @PopCulture2000s, while sharing a snippet of the dramatic scene, simply wrote: "this is CINEMA! Montoya... The tension… You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand, this is insane!"

As the video went viral, people kept sharing posts on X with the caption "MONTOYA POR FAVOR" and applying it to films.

Netflix Espana also jumped in the fray, sharing a clip from Twilight where vampire Edward zooms across the forest with Bella on his back, with the caption: "Montoya Por Favor." 

Several football teams and sports accounts, such as Borussia Dortmund, AFC Ajax, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-German as well as the US Open Tennis account all shared clips of their athletes playing with the caption "MONTOYA POR FAVOR".

But it didn't stop there. As the moment began to circulate on Tiktok, the phrase "Por favor Montoya, por favor!" started getting used as a sound in people's videos. 

For example, Ligue 1 - the top of the French football league - posted a video using the sound with the caption "MONTOYA POR FAVOR." It now has accumulated over 858,000 views.

As for the Spanish version of Temptation Island, called La Isla de las Tentaciones, the show's website notes that Anita later told the other islanders that Montoya was actually "the first one to mess things up."

However, she forgave him enough to break the show's rules by running over to hug him, telling the host that she wanted to "go with him now" and attempting to escape from her part of the village. Contact with your partner isn't allowed.

While Anita said she has been hurt by Montoya, she listened as the host told her that their temporary separation would "be good, even though it doesn't seem like it now."

La Isla de las Tentaciones is the Spanish version of Temptation Island, a 25-year-old format where couples go on holiday to see if they can withstand being seduced by sexy strangers.