‘Love Island’s not really about sex’
As it comes to its end, ‘Love Island’ presenter Caroline Flack tells Elizabeth Day why she thinks the reality show was this summer’s breakout hit
Caroline Flack has a theory about Love Island. Well, if we’re being strictly accurate, she has several dozen theories and discusses them at length in the manner of a true Love Island obsessive. But we’ve only got an hour’s interview time, so we have to be relatively brief. Why, then, does she believe the programme is so confoundingly popular?
“I think people just relate to the situations,” Flack says. “It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you’re from, how old you are, it doesn’t matter how much experience you’ve got in life, how educated you are: emotions are all the same.”
We’re talking in the back of an Addison Lee taxi, which is speeding along the A40 to Heathrow Airport, where Flack, 37, will get a plane to Majorca in order to present the final of ITV2’S flagship reality show on Monday night. She’s already wearing flip-flops, sunglasses and a camouflage-patterned onesie in readiness for the Balearic sunshine.
For the uninitiated among you, the premise of Love Island is deceptively simple. A bunch of strangers are deposited in a telegenic holiday villa for seven weeks and encouraged to “couple up” with other contestants, which involves sharing a bed and possibly allowing romance to develop. The public vote to keep their favourite couple in the villa. Those with the fewest votes are kicked out by their fellow housemates. The last couple standing wins a £50,000 cash prize.
But, as Flack points out, it’s the relationships that are key to the programme’s success – it’s never really been about the money. Or the sex.
“The sex is literally as interesting as them making a cup of tea,” she says. “When you’re into the storyline you’re like, ‘Oh no, stop that bit. We just want to hear what you’re going to say’.”
Flack has been hosting Love Island since the first series aired in 2015. She (and her make-up artist) thought the show was going to be a massive hit as soon as it was broadcast, but Love Island, unlike the contestants’ suntans, proved to be something of a slow-burner.
It wasn’t until this year that the country became officially hooked. Love
Island is now a national obsession: an episode last week, during which contestants were subjected to a lie-detector test in order to determine the true nature of their feelings, attracted 2.2 million viewers. Celebrity fans include Liam Gallagher, the rapper Stormzy and the England rugby team.
Suddenly, we were all leaving dinner parties and summer drinks dos with an airy excuse about having to be up early the next day, before rushing back to our television screens for 9pm in order to get our nightly fix. In an age of Netflix and on-demand streaming, Love Island is that mythical beast: event television.
“People watch it there and then, and they want to talk about it,” says Flack, who follows the comments on Twitter obsessively. She’ll then text her non-identical twin sister, Jody, or an old group of school friends, with her thoughts, “because we’ve all been through all the situations they’re
going through in there. I definitely can relate to every single one: ‘Yeah, done that, been in that, felt like that before. He’s exactly like my ex…’ Do you know what I mean?”
I do. Part of my fascination with Love Island is its anthropological flavour. It is not, like I’m a Celebrity, a personality contest in which the eventual victor must endure a series of bizarre or extreme challenges involving kangaroo testicles. Nor is it Big Brother, where competitors are rewarded for their outrageousness. Instead, it’s a quest for human connection; a game in which the strength of a relationship is tested. We see our own dating histories played out at warp speed, in a microcosm of intensity. We see ourselves in Olivia, who, despite her physical gorgeousness, is so deeply insecure that she lashes out in the most unlikeable ways. And we see ourselves in her other half, Chris, who never fully understands what he’s done wrong (because most of the time he hasn’t actually done anything wrong). Strip back the thong bikinis and inflatable flamingos, and Love Island is
essentially a traditional show based around the romantic notion of “finding The One”. “I know when I fall in love, I can’t control what I say or what I do or how I act,” Flack says, “because that little love bug comes out and it gets you, and you say all those things that you shouldn’t have said, and you argue about the silliest things, and that’s what you’re watching.”
What about the criticism that Love
Island is portraying an unrealistic body image for young girls?
“I guess it is, really, isn’t it?” Flack says frankly. “I have nothing to do with the casting, so I can’t say why they pick certain people, but the type of people who apply are already quite body-confident, I guess.”
For many of us, Love Island has been such an integral part of our lives for the past two months that we’re genuinely worried about how we’re going to cope once it’s over. Flack, who won Strictly Come Dancing in 2014 and trained in musical theatre, goes straight into her next job, going on a Uk-wide tour with the hit West End musical, Crazy for You.
But, she says, “it’s going to be really weird not having Love Island every night. It’s almost like escapism from my life. I think about it all the time and I talk about it all the time, even in situations where I’m in a taxi or in a shop and people get in touch who I haven’t heard from in ages. Honestly, my family have spoken to me more over this last seven weeks than in my entire life since I left home.”
Flack is arguably the perfect host for the show. She’s been working as a television presenter for the best part of 15 years. For a while, when she was fronting The X Factor with Olly Murs, she was the subject of online abuse over her appearance. It was, she says now, “a horrible time. This is where I can give the Islanders and contestants advice. I know what it’s like to be that victim online. And that’s why I hate seeing it happen to them.”
How does she deal with it now? “I’m able to get my head around the idea that it’s more about the person who is saying it, than the actual person they’re saying it about.”
Ironically, for the presenter of a show that is all about finding a romantic partner, Flack is currently single. Her exes include Harry Styles and music manager Jack Street, but she’s perfectly happy not having a boyfriend, much to the bafflement of certain parts of the media.
“Oh, God, yeah!” she squeals. “If you’re in your 30s, not married, not wearing a twinset and pearls, they think you’re having a breakdown. When really you’re just like: ‘I’ve got a really good life. I’m making some really strong decisions. I’ve done all of this on my own.’ But you don’t get that. You get, ‘Ooh, Caroline looks upset.’ Or, ‘Caroline turns to wine’ or something, and I’m at home in my kitchen, eating cornflakes, thinking: ‘What are you on about?’”
Flack says there’s a weight of expectation on women to “be at a certain place in life at a certain time”.
“But, you know, there’s no such thing as perfection,” she says. “Everyone is doing life at their own pace. And ultimately, all we really want is love, isn’t it? Love doesn’t just come in getting married, and love doesn’t just come in a man and woman, or a relationship, you know, love comes from parents and friendship and all sorts of different ways.”
She’s right, of course. You can find love in a myriad places – even on a reality TV show watched by millions and surrounded by pink inflatable flamingos.
The Love Island final is on ITV2 on Monday, 9pm. Crazy for You begins its UK tour at Theatre Royal, Plymouth, on Aug 17. For tickets and details, go to crazyforyoutour.com