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Based on their relatively isolated environments, we argue that LBVs must beprimarily the product of binary evolution, challenging the traditionalsingle-star view wherein LBVs mark a brief transition between massive O starsand Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. If the latter were true, then LBVs should beconcentrated in young clusters and found alongside main-sequence stars withsimilarly high inferred initial mass. This is decidedly not the case. Examininglocations of LBVs compared to O stars in our Galaxy and the Magellanic Cloudsreveals that LBVs systematically avoid clusters of O stars, and many resideover 100 pc from any O star. In the LMC, LBVs are statistically much moreisolated than O-type stars, and (perhaps most surprisingly) even more isolatedthan most WR stars. This makes it impossible for LBVs to be massive stars intransition to WR stars. Instead, we propose that massive stars and supernova(SN) subtypes are dominated by bifurcated evolutionary paths in interactingbinaries, wherein most WR stars and SNeIbc correspond to the mass donors, whileLBVs (and their lower-mass analogs like B[e] supergiants, which we show to beeven more isolated) are the mass gainers. LBVs are essentially the lateevolutionary stage of massive blue stragglers. Through binary mass transfer,rejuvinated mass gainers get enriched, spun up, and sometimes kicked far fromtheir clustered birthsites by their companion's SN. This scenario agrees betterwith LBVs exploding as SNeIIn and the observed isolation of SNe~IIn and SNimpostors. We argue that environmental trends of various SN subtypes areinfluenced more by binarity and SN kicks, rather than tracing initial mass asis generally assumed. Mergers or Thorne-Zykow objects might also give rise toLBVs, but these scenarios may have a harder time explaining why LBVs avoidclusters.

Luminous Blue Variables are Antisocial: Their Isolation Implies that they are Kicked Mass Gainers in Binary Evolution