Love Island star Faye Winter defended Joey Essex’s arrival into the villa last night after many long-term fans were left confused and annoyed he had been accepted onto the show.
Over the last few years, many contestants have arrived into the villa who already have some sort of following on social media due to their careers or family members – including Tommy Fury, Gemma Owen and Dani Dyer.
However, bosses of the reality show have now taken it one step further and sent in their “first celebrity contestant” in the form of Essex who is known for his time on The Only Way is Essex.
Whilst Essex – the self-proclaimed “King of Essex” – admitted he was looking for his “queen”, this left a sour taste in viewers’ mouths and forced them to air their frustrations on social media.
One fumed on X: “[I can’t lie] Joey Essex might ruin it. Have we not begged them to bring extra normal people in and they’ve gone and brought a ‘household’ name #loveIsland.”
Someone else agreed: “I’m sorry but they have truly ruined love island by getting influencers in remember when it used to be normal ass people with normal jobs and didn’t have loads of followers and weren’t in it for the money or the fame #loveIsland.”
Faye and Teddy came third during their season in 2021
ITV
A third slammed: “Having Joey Essex on there now is so dead where are the original people? Where is the public? WE DON’T WANT CELEBRITIES.” (sic)
Former Love Island finalist Faye Winter recently defended Essex’s signing and claimed that his arrival was to get people talking about the show – something which he seems to have succeeded at.
Speaking to GB News, Winter explained: “Love Island is about getting people to talk about the show, this is what it thrives off of. And Joey Essex going into that show has done exactly that.
“It has done exactly what he was meant to do, everybody is talking about it and the thing is, do I personally agree with it? I would love to see more people from everyday walks of life going into that show absolutely I would.
Faye expressed that the show is for every walk of live – including Joey’s already famous one
“But have I met Joey Essex? Yes. Is he a lovely person? Yes. Does he also deserve a shot at love? Yes! At what point do we say now we need to exclude a certain type of person when we are trying to make the show so inclusive?
“You can’t win something that is a losing battle here. You can’t turn around and say no we want people that are normal but then we want diversity and people from all walks of life.
“Because yes Joey is from a different walk of life and people may not agree with it and I would personally like to see more people that are normal going into the show and don’t already have that status, however, I am wrong for saying that because he deserves to go on as much as the next person.”
Winter came third during her series of Love Island in 2021, alongside then-boyfriend Teddy Soares, and admitted the show had changed her life for the better and for the worse.
Joey stole Samantha from Sam last night which left him dumped from the island after 24 hours
ITV
“Love Island changed my life in some aspects it changed it for the better, in some aspects in my life it changed it for the worse but I can’t say that Love Island changed it, I made decisions that didn’t make me happy.
“I just chose things that made me unhappy. So that is not Love Island’s fault, that is my fault. It gave me a platform and it gave me a voice and it gave me so much that I am so grateful for that I will never take it away from them.”