Love Island fans are puzzled after old messages emerged showing that Love Island's Davide Sanclimenti and Jacques O'Neill knew one another outside the villa. An Instagram conversation between the pair has been circulating on social media as Italian hunk Davide, who lives in Manchester, and Gemma Owen's rugby player ex Jacques both search for love and compete for the £50,000 prize on the ITV dating show.
Though Davide and Jacques are not thought to be friends, the pair have clearly crossed paths online long before Love Island. Jacques, who played for Castleford Tigers before stepping into the famous TV villa, commented on a picture business owner Davide shared online in January 2021.
Davide posted a shot of him working out with a pal and Jacques joked: "You boys need to start training." The post dates back 73 weeks even before even last year's series aired.
READ MORE:
Davide replied to Jacques: "More gym and less parties I guess." And Jacques responded with jokey emojis: "More gym keep the amount of parties the same."
timtamspriv commented: "HOLD ON NOW." em8xx said: "They know each other." And over on Twitter @TuIaTribe_asked: "So are Jacques and davide ever going to mention they both know each other before going on the show?"
![](https://i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/article24268144.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_DavideJPG.jpg)
Davide joined the Love Island villa before Jacques, briefly coupling-up briefly with dressage rider Gemma the daughter of former Liverpool and Manchester United footballing star Michael Owen. And Jacques arrived days later as a surprise bombshell just as Gemma had re-coupled with fishmonger Luca Bish and Davide had partnered with Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu.
Davide and Jacques haven't acknowledged crossing paths before on screen. But Jacques was seen comforting Davide as his relationship with Ekin-Su ended when she sneaked off to the terrace to kiss newcomer Jay Younger.
He invited Davide to sit beside him and placed protective arm around his fellow Islander saying: "Come and sit here, lad." @Monababyyyyy asked: "Hold on is this the start of the Davide-Jacques bromance?" And @joel_thfc tweeted: "Jacques is proper best friend material, known Davide for like 5 minutes and he's out here defending him with his life."
READ NEXT: