Love Island’s biggest secrets and scandals – unseen rows to hidden condoms

Love Island is just a few weeks away from returning and will be on our screens almost nightly across the summer.

The 2022 series promises a brand new villa, as well as the usual fiery arguments and shocking twists the show has become known for.

As popular as the ITV reality series is, many viewers may be unaware of some it’s best-kept production secrets – from secret days off to give the contestants a chance to unwind to its extensive therapy programme and unseen meals.

Here’s a look at how Love Island works behind the scenes.

Secret days off

Series three contestant Kem Cetinay previously revealed the cast get ‘a day off' on Saturday and have the opportunity to head to the beach – albeit with strict rules in place.

He told This Morning : “They get one day off a week.

"What happens is it gives them a day to clean the villa and you take your mics off and normally we go to the beach and we just chill out. Not a lot of people know this. What happens is when you take your mics off, you're not allowed to talk about anything to do with the show.

“You've got to talk about home life. You're being watched by an evil hawk, by the producers because they don't want you to talk about what's going on.

“You can all sit and chat but they are quite careful about what you talk about because they want to keep it so everyone at home can see and get it on video. It's more a day off from all the intense games, all the intense dates, deciding who you like and don't like.”

‘Repetitive’ meals

During an Instagram Q&A with fans following his exit from the villa, series seven contestant Hugo Hammond said they get lunch and dinner cooked for them at the Love Island villa.

He said: “The food was decent, we had a lot of chicken and fish so it got a little bit repetitive and they served it by bringing out tables and chairs by the kitchen.

"We'd eat, we'd scran, finish it up, wash up all the dishes ourselves and then they'd take the tables and chairs away and we'd carry on living our best Island lives."

With lunch and dinner provided for them, the contestants only have to sort their own breakfast out.

Hidden condoms

The viewers never see them but there are actually 200 scattered all around the villa so there’s always one on hand wherever the cast might be.

This gives each of the islanders four a day between them.

No clocks

There are no clocks in the villa, which has left some contestants resorting to desperate means to work out the time.

“We never knew the time in there,” series six winner Paige Turley told the Radio Times . “We tried to work out the time by the sun, but I don’t think we were ever that good.”

The 2020 islanders apparently found their way around the no-clock situation by spotting the digital time on the villa oven.

“They were going to take it off the oven but they left it on for a week or so,” Finn Tapp said. “We clocked it and we’d look up to the sky and say, ‘The sun’s there. I bet it’s about 11:43am in the morning’ and apparently the producers were like, ‘How are they getting it so spot on?'”

Unseen arguments

Series five winner Amber Gill recently revealed that she and Greg O’Shea had a major unseen bust-up just days before winning the show.

Speaking with YouTuber Murad Merali, she claimed that Greg’s tempers flared during the argument.

“Me and Greg had the biggest bust-up you could ever imagine like we didn’t want to know each other,” she said.

“We were like, ‘Nah, we’re not doing this, it’s done,’ it was a lot.”

Amber added: “We ended up being separated and then we came back together because we did like each other at the time.”

Therapy programme

Amber also recently described Love Island’s aftercare to Hello Magazine , saying she had to speak to a therapist for an hour and a half before appearing on the show.

She continued: “Even when the show was on, if there was something going on that was not nice (and I went through a couple of things that weren’t very nice), then you can see one of the welfare team members.

“If you want to go and see them, you have the option to. Afterwards, you’d speak to the same woman that you spoke to and the welfare team.

“I think it’s like a 14 to 18-week therapy programme that you get after the show ends when you speak to someone every week.

“Then they try and set you up with someone external who is not a part of ITV’s welfare team and then go from there. It was a long period of time.”

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