The Love Island villa is getting into shape ahead of the hotly anticipated 2022 season – which promises to include more outgoing cast members than ever before.
The much loved ITV2 reality romance show is returning for season eighth season in less than three weeks and workers have been getting busy updating the main house to get it ready for the new cast of singletons.
Photographers in Majorca – where Love Island is filmed and where the famous villa is situated – have captured the upgrade work in action.
Painters have been touching up and re-staging the scenery, while electricians have been getting to work sorting out all the lighting.
A local eyewitness has said: “Cables full of light bulbs are already hanging in the Love Island Villa, the wooden boxes are already painted, awnings are in place.
“The assembly work on the new villa continues in Mallorca.”
It is believed filming in the Villa will begin on May 30th – while the show will actually start airing on June 6th, meaning there could be a week of drama unfolding behind the scenes before they make it to air.
With the competition – which sees winners showered with a £500,000 prize – is rumoured to include a sports hunk in the upcoming new series.
Super League rugby player Jacques O’Neill has been linked to the new season – with reports suggesting that he will put his sporting career to one side in order to find love on the show.
Zara McDermott ’s brother, Brad McDermott, has also been rumoured as a possible 2022 contestant – as has Sophie Draper, a beautician who previously dated Aston Villa footballer Matty Cash.
Fans might be disappointed to learn that Laura Whitmore will be returning to host the show – despite complaints about her lacklustre presenting skills and rumours that ITV were hoping to replace her.
Reports last year suggested the flop presenter would be replaced by Strictly sensation AJ Odudu – but alas the Irish host is due to return.
Last month, Laura hit out at former Love Island contestant Rachel Finni – who slammed her presenting as “not great” and also suggested Laura only had her Love Island presenting role due to nepotism as she is married to voice over star Iain Stirling.
Furiously lashing out at the claims via Instagram, Laura raged: “I’m not going to give too much energy to it because there's always stuff like this and you kind of just brush it off but I think we need to be careful when we discuss women and their work.
'I've worked in telly for 14 years. I won a competition to be the face of MTV and have stayed working from job to job.
“I’ve done incredible things all over the world, I’ve worked with the best teams, but I've never got a job because of a guy I dated.”
She continued: “And it's horrible when you see if coming from other women because for so many years women have talked about who they are going out with.
“They're only defined by who they are going out with, despite all the work and build up leading up to that and they are their own individual person, with their own experience.”
She added: “It's a shame because I think we're never really going to have full power and empowerment as a sex if we keep doing that.”
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