Love Island

As the seventh series of the show approaches, we caught up with our favourite contestants

“I had trust issues before I went in, but once I left, it got harder”

The series 5 contestant entered the villa to escape her academic life, but is now nervous to date

Yewande Biala remembers the conversation with her boss like it was yesterday: she was going on Love Island, and would be gone a week or so, and she’d email to let her know when she was coming back. Two years later and she still hasn’t sent that email.

“Luckily my boss was a fan of the show,” says Biala, who was working as an oncology vaccine specialist. “She said, ‘Take as much time as you need – if you come back, we’ll be here.’ I asked her not to give my job away.” Now she works as an influencer, creating content with brands such as Missguided and Boux Avenue.

Dublin-born Biala, 25, knew getting on the show was a big deal, but she had never been a fan. “I’d seen one or two episodes, but I’d never seen it the whole way through, so I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew I wanted to get out of this box I’d put myself in. I worked hard, got a first at uni, did a Master’s and I was a specialist by 21. When other people talked about all these experiences they’d had, all I had to talk about was the time I slept under a chair in the library at uni. I had to do something.”

It changed her life, although in some ways, not for the better. “I had trust issues before I went in, but once I left, it got even harder. Normally if you want to meet someone, you go on Tinder, but if someone matches with me, I think it’s because they’ve seen me on TV. I’m so paranoid that now I just don’t put myself in that situation.”

But Biala wouldn’t change anything. “I had an amazing summer. The way it’s engineered is so clever because you’re so completely focused on your time there that you forget about what we called ‘The Outside’. It means you’re really in the moment and I had my highest highs and my lowest lows in that villa.”