Love Island is back on our screens very soon and we couldn’t be more excited.
We have not one but two Irish cast members this year. And we sat down with two icons from the show, Catherine Agbaje and Toby Aromolaran.
We chatted romance (they’re both “the most single I’ve ever been”), life in the villa and what advice they’d give the new Islanders.
We have our first Irish cast member announced for this year, Megan. How do you think she’ll get on in the villa?
Catherine: She’ll get along with everyone and I’m just delighted to see someone from Dublin again in the villa. I feel like you need a Dublin person.
Toby: Yeah, but can English guys deal with Irish girls?
Catherine: Yeah, we’re feisty.
She’s already being compared to Maura Higgins. Catherine, do you feel the Irish girls will always be compared to her?
Catherine: I feel like it’s never a comparing thing. So, I was always like “I’m gonna be me” and you want to be yourself. You want to be remembered as yourself, not because you’re trying to be someone else. So, I don’t really think it crossed my mind if I’m being honest with you because Maura’s iconic and I love her and I never thought “Oh, I need to live up to her.” When Megan goes in she just needs to be herself and she’ll be remembered for who she is.
Catherine, what was it like going into the villa?
Catherine: Obviously being from Ireland, going into the villa, you don’t know what to expect. It’s a whole different culture out there. A whole different set of rules. I feel once you go in there yourself, you make friends with the girls and Irish girls are such girl-girls so I feel like she will be a girl-girl and she’ll be able to stand her foot.
Toby, what was it like coming out of the villa?
Toby: Mine was kind of different because I came out like in a relationship. We leaned on each other, which was a lot better than just coming out by yourself. I feel like the pressure of that is hard, even the pressure of a relationship is quite hard as well but… I quite enjoyed it to be honest. I thought it was quite fun, like something different, out of the ordinary. Like, different situation I’ve never been in so I kind of leaned into it in a way, yeah, and found it funny after time.
Catherine, being a proud Irish girl, what is the big difference you found between Ireland and England?
Catherine: I feel like naturally everyone says like I’m such a bubbly person, I smile a lot but I’m Irish, we love to stop for a conversation; we have everyone’s time of day whereas in London no-one has anyone’s time of day.
If you had a time machine and could go back into the villa, knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently?
Catherine: That’s a tough one. I feel like I wouldn’t do anything different as such because I feel like everything that happens you learn from it. But I feel like All Stars was kind of that opportunity to change the way you probably would have acted compared to the original series. We both did All Stars and I wasn’t as influenced by people I would say.
And what would you say is the hardest part about being on Love Island?
Catherine: Not being able to obviously speak to family and friends. That is really tough because in the outside world if something goes wrong I’m literally on the phone to my sister. I’m like “Ah, this is happening! I need you to give me a second opinion. Oh my God, I’m crazy”. And you don’t have that in the villa. So, everyone’s just feeding into whatever they’re doing, they’re like “Yeah, you need to do this” or “Yeah, stand your ground.” But they can’t really give you the best advice possible.
Toby: My one’s silly. My one’s just like before going in, I feel like you’re so excited that like you can’t even sleep at night. It’s just you and your chaperones so those days before the villa are like… I used to dread them, I can’t lie. Just get me in. Just start Love Island today, like I just want to go into the villa.
Do you think people are still going in for love or are they using Love Island to launch their platform?
Catherine: I would hope to think that people go in to find love. But I do think people… it’s a bit of both now, like, I think obviously to say just love I feel like that’s just silly.
Toby: Do you know what though? I think… As a boy’s opinion, I think the guys going in they’re going in there for love really you know because I don’t think there’s anything really out here for guys anymore so like…
Catherine: I feel like you still need to go in there to find the love of your life. If your intentions aren’t real people can sniff you out. In the villa, you don’t really see but people are always looking like “Hmm, is this person here for clout?” There’s always one person in the villa like “Hmm, we don’t know this persons like, intentions.”
Toby: And then once that happens, people start turning on you. They start being like “Yeah, you’re not here for the genuine reasons.”
Catherine: So you get sniffed out real quick.
But you have managed to get that platform from Love Island.
Toby: My life motto is ‘Go with the flow.’ I just went with the flow. Since coming off 2021, I’ve just been doing everything. I’ve got to thank my management to be fair. I feel like because in the game it’s so hard, especially like as a guy I think now it’s dying off for us. Love Island’s not worth people if they’re going on for a platform but I never went on for a platform anyway so I feel like the whole love thing just worked for me. I don’t know, it’s so weird like, yeah.
What advice would you give this year’s Islanders?
Toby: I think I’ve learnt, I didn’t know anything about love, I’ll be real, I was a kid. Now, I know so much about love, it just comes in everywhere. [laughs] I’m playing. I think I know a lot now, but advice would just be like throw yourself in there. Try to not overthink anything and throw yourself into the process of finding love. Like, let yourself go basically.
Catherine: Yeah, just let your guard down. I feel like that’s important because us girls we like to kind of like hold onto stuff and like unintentionally bring it into new relationships and stuff. You just need to let your guard down and sometimes you don’t know what love… you might have an idea of what you want but truly no one knows what love is so it’s until you feel it. It’s a feeling.
Is it hard to balance friendships and relationships in the villa? As the famous phrase goes, “You don’t want to step on anyone’s toes”.
Catherine: Naturally I bounced off all the girls, I was just there for all the girls naturally. So, anyone going in I would just say: have your girlies, like you know, you’re looking for love, you’re gonna have to step on toes and stuff but once you become friends with certain people they’ll understand. Everyone knows that everyone’s there for the same reasons but just be honest and direct and not go behind each other’s backs.
Toby: Well, I would’ve said that you’re in there for yourself personally to find love, like you know what I mean? At the end of the day, they’re not gonna be in your relationship like; but also, I feel like you do need to sieve through and be like if that’s like my best friend in there, like I’m not gonna go for his girl… But at the end of the day…
Is there any misconception viewers have of you after seeing you on the show?
Catherine: Probably that I’m a people pleaser; I’m not a people pleaser.
Toby: My one is that I talk to so many girls; that’s my problem. Like, it just follows me around everywhere now and everyone just expects me to speak to girls all the time. I don’t even chat to girls anymore.
Register Now to Watch Love Island: Love Island, one of Ireland’s most streamed shows returns June 9th – and this year, you’ll need a Virgin Media Play account to tune in. Register now, it only takes a few seconds to sign up and its completely free, so you don’t miss any of the action on Virgin Media Play!
