Maya Jama has confessed to being a pint-swilling cider drinker who once went into work at Radio 1 still dressed as a mermaid from a
Halloween party the night before.
Like The Wurzels, who had a hit in 1976 with I Am A Cider Drinker, the 28-year-old Love Island presenter is from the South West and so she loves her scrumpy.
Maya said: “I drink loads of pints. Cider.
“I’m from Bristol.”
But although she loves to party, she does not suffer much the morning after.
She said: “I don’t really get hangovers. Not properly. I get tired.”
Maya, who was a Radio 1 DJ from 2018 to 2020, did get in bother after one memorable night out.
She said: “I didn’t change out of my Halloween costume and I went straight into radio the next day.
“I had about half an hour of sleep. It was a shell-t**ted mermaid costume with a big, long glittery tail and green dreadlocks and I had loads of stuff on my face... walking through the BBC at 8am with all the BBC news people like, ‘What the f*** is going on here?’.”
Maya, who has been filming Love Island segments in South Africa, has also signed to host the summer series.
And, speaking on the Jonathan Ross Show, she said she plans to party as well as present this year.
She said: “I need to make the most of my 20s. I worked loads for the first six years of my career, and I wasn’t really partying much. Now I feel a bit more comfortable, I’m like, do both.”
Maya perfected a slow-motion walk on to Love Island on a night out with pals.
She said: “They were like, ‘OK, show us how you’re going to walk’. As soon as I got there and all the camera crew was there, I was like, ‘I can’t do it…’ but you do it four or five times and they choose the best bits.”
* Maya, Prue Leith and Niall Horan are on The Jonathan Ross Show, tonight on ITV, at 9.40pm.