Entertainment

'Love Island's Eyal Reportedly Dated This Fellow Reality Star & We Are SHOOK

by Louise McCreesh
Love Island/ITV

It hasn't been the best of starts for Love Island contestant Eyal Booker, who struggled to make much headway with his current partner Hayley Hughes after dubbing the reality series "a game" during Tuesday night's episode. And, while you may already know all the details about Eyal Booker's boyband past in EverYoung, what you probably didn't realise is that Love Island's Eyal Booker and Tina Stinnes actually dated in the past.

The surprising factoid was revealed by Olivia Buckland — runner-up of the 2016 series alongside her now fiancé Alex Bowen — in her weekly column for new! magazine. Writing about her knowledge of this year's batch of contestants, Buckland confessed to not having any prior contact with the new Islanders — with the exception of Booker, who used to date 2016 Love Island star Tina Stinnes.

"I actually don't know any of them except Eyal Booker," Buckland wrote in her column. "Tina Stinnes dated him not long after we came out of the villa. He's the brother of someone I work with at W7 make-up. I've never met him, but from what I know, he got on well with Tina."

Stinnes was a late arrival in the 2016 series of Love Island, immediately causing a stir by pursuing Kady McDermott's in-villa boyfriend Scott Thomas and almost immediately being labelled a "Made in Chelsea reject" by Kady for her efforts. Despite the initial frosty reception from fellow Islanders, she soon bonded with the Love Island female contestants, although she didn't have much luck with male suitors on the show. Indeed, after being turned down by Thomas and then failing to find a spark with Irish Adam, Troy and English Adam, Stinnes was sent home before finding love. Alas, it appears she may have found it — at least, briefly — with 2018 contestant Eyal.

Following her turn on the show, Stinnes finally did secure a role on Made in Chelsea, although she to this day remains in touch with her Love Island cohort, recently accompanying Olivia Buckland and other former Islanders to Buckland's Mykonos hen party.

While news of Booker and Stinnes's past love affair may leave you shocked to the very core, Stinnes is far from the only Love Island star to have an ex-partner join the villa. Indeed, previous contestants that have also had their exes invade the villa include 2015 contestant Luis Morrison (whose ex Cally Jane entered the same year to win him back) and 2016 contestant Tom Powell (whose ex Emma Jane Woodham entered the same year to — ahem — do the deed with Terry Walsh on top of the covers).

But, while Morrison and Powell had their ex partners invade their same series, much like the case of Tina Stinnes, another former Love Island contestant will have the discomfort of watching an ex invade the villa for a different series.

Speaking on ITV's This Morning on Monday, last year's Love Island contestant Danielle Sellers revealed one of her exes would be heading to the 2018 series of the ITV2 reality show in search of love (or for the more cynical of readers, overnight fame and potentially a lot of money).

"There’s someone I know who’s going in as well," Sellers said. "This is going to be not so fun to watch for me." She was then asked to confirm whether the future contestant is "male or female" by show host Phillip Schofield. After confirming it to be a male, Schofield added: [Is it] an ex?" Sellers then blushed and looked down in her lap, which I think confirms that it probably is. “This is awks,” Phil replied.

On this occasion I'm more than inclined to agree with Schof. But, please bring on more of the awks.

Love Island airs at 9 p.m. on ITV2