Trending 31st May 2022 by Vicki Notaro
The 14 Most Iconic Contestants Of Love Island Past
It was tough, but we've whittled it down to this flirty fourteen.
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Maura Higgins
The undisputed queen of Mallorca, and not just because she’s Irish (although it helps!). Maura is the bombshell that every other bombshell will be compared to for the rest of time, because she came in and not only blew shit up with her banter and raw (sometimes too raw?!) sexuality but also because she was sound, funny, gorgeous and didn’t take even a smidgen of shit from the lads. We’ll forget about the Curtis phase, shall we? Thanks. She is THRIVING right now and we couldn’t be happier for her.
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Kem Cetinay
We know he won with Amber Davies, but the real star of the season was Kem’s bromance with Chris Hughes (more on him in a sec). I feel like that was the last season of Love Island before it got cynical – where they all used to smoke their holes off, kill one another and didn’t fully know what they were letting themselves in for. Those were the days, my friends. Kem has since parlayed a career as a Love Island analyst and presenter, and other showbiz bits including a line with Penneys. He’s as cute.
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Chris Hughes and Olivia Attwood
‘SIT BACK DOWN… I’M SAT…’
We had high hopes for this pair, the only couple on this list and they’re not even still together. He was a simply gorgeous farm boy from Devon, she was a feisty glamour gal with a temper and we watched them struggle with their fuckboi (I relate this to both genders) energy and temptations. Then they had a fake baby together and everyone was sold, but sadly despite a post-villa reality show, they didn’t go the distance. She’s engaged to someone else, he was (sadly) dumped by Jesy Nelson, but is now in a relationship with Annabel Dimmock.
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Molly-Mae Hague
Another fabulous bombshell (are the main cast ever as exciting?) Molly Mae waltzed into the hot tub with red lipstick and tumbling platinum waves, and Tommy Fury was putty in her tiny little hands. An influencer before going on Love Island (rare at the time), she is the star of many a meme for her brilliant reactions to Maura shamelessly flirting with her fella. She and Tommy are still love’s young dream, one of only a handful of couples still going strong from the series on the whole. We’re expecting an engagement any day now.
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Megan Barton Hanson
When Megan skipped into the villa she caused absolute ructions thanks to her apparent beauty and sex appeal, freaky-deaky nature and complete lack of girl code, but we always had to admire her for it? She couldn’t stand poor Eyal (who is incidentally now besties with Scott Disick since they both used to date Lisa Rinna’s daughters) so she robbed Wes off Laura in the most incendiary bit of flirtation ever broadcast. She’s since been around the reality TV block, had relationships with famous men and women, and makes a pretty penny on OnlyFans. Fair play.
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Camilla Thurlow
She won our hearts when she debated feminism, waxed lyrical about her serious career and thrashed every fuckboi that came her way in the most post and polite way imaginable. Then Jamie Jewitt came into the villa and we cheered, because our Cam was finally getting the fellow posh ride she deserved. They’ve since had two babies and are married, and we couldn’t be happier for them!
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Jack Fincham
His place on this list was fairly certain anyway because I love him on sight – a cheeky chappie pen salesman from Essex with blindingly white teeth, a quiff and no six-pack in sight (they get really boring, okay?!), he was smitten with Dani Dyer right away and not just because her father is the icon Danny (although that definitely helped). He wasn’t so smitten that he wouldn’t put her in her place though – we’ll never forget the “what time’s your flight?” when she threatened to leave. They tried to make a go of it outside and we thought they’d last, but they’ve since had babies with other people.
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Ovie Soko
Has an audience ever been so united in their love and lust for one islander? Professional basketball player Ovie made a late entry into the 2019 season and stole everyone’s hearts, from his wondrous height and rideyness to his spiffy style – and who can forget MESSAGE?! The 2021 season desperately needed an Ovie for everyone to drool over and admire.
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Christopher Taylor
Christopher was a breath of fresh air when he entered the villa in summer 2019, lanky and tattooed and nothing like the other muscle-bound lads in the “chaldish” gang. He taught them all how to salmon, rocked a women’s dressing gown like no other, and since leaving he’s both been in a relationship with Maura and created some of the best spon-con we’ve ever seen. Sad those two crazy kids didn’t work out, tbh.
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Georgia Steele
Steele by name, steel by nature, Love Island fanatics will never forget this diminutive gal taking a second to gather herself so she didn’t absolutely BASH her fella when he came back from Casa Amor with another bird on his arm. We all felt that breath she took as she steadied herself, amirite? She had highs and lows in the villa but was always totally entertaining.
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Kaz Kamwi
Mess with Queen Kaz at your peril, lads – she is the sweetest gal in the world and must be protected at all costs. She was the people’s champ – avoiding silly arguments, being genuinely thrilled for the others when good things happened and basically being too good for every fella in there. We will never forget her recieving the “We’re done” from Matt after deciding between him and Tyler. But she did end up with Tyler and it was all for the best, too bad they didn’t work out IRL, the breakup didn’t stop Kaz from being the bubbly chic we know and love luckily!
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Amber Gill
Another spitfire, Amber was generally unimpressed and no-nonsense but she did fall for king fuckboi Michael only to be left seething when he did as fuckbois do and attempted to gaslight her at the same time. We loved how she stood up for Yewande, called out shitty behaviour and eventually won with our very own Greg O’Shea. While they weren’t a match made in heaven, her Twitter commentaries are reason enough to adore her tbqh.
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Shaughna Phillips
Congrats hun…. Shaughna Phillips was the unfortunate soul in season six of Love Island (the first winter Love Island), who got mugged off by the partner they’ve put all their eggs in one basket with, it happens every year. Although, Shaughna managed to own the situation when Callum Jones chose to couple up with Casa Amor contestant Molly, by creating one of the most iconic one liners of the series, “congrats, hun”. The perfect meme for many a situation, thank you Shaughna you rocked it!
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Toby Aromolaran
We HAD to include the man who carried the last season of the show. Chaotic and controversial and yet had the most impressive character arc of the series going from the villain after he mugged Chloe off (three times) to one of the most loveable cast members even coming second overall. He was VERY indecisive throughout the series and kept us all on our toes as to who’d he’d couple up with any given week, but it seemed that once he finally followed his heart with Chloe he realised what a mistake he had made before and they have been going strong ever since. They are just GAS!
*This feature was originally published in the August 2021 issue of STELLAR Magazine.
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