Love Island flops who had the last laugh – from Zara McDermott’s 10-day stint to first ever dumped islanders’ US success
IT’S usually the case that the winners of Love Island go on to bigger and better things.
But sometimes, even the islanders who got dumped after less than a week become more successful than the finalists.
With Love Island coming to an end this Monday, there’s still hope for some of this series’ unlucky-in-love stars, including Lola and Harry, the two final bombshells who failed to make a splash.
From Zara McDermott‘s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stint to the first ever dumped Islanders’ surprising new jobs, we reveal the biggest flops from the show who had the last laugh…
Zara McDermott
Zara McDermott is, arguably, one of the most successful Love Islanders ever.
She has fronted multiple BBC documentaries about tough subjects including revenge porn and eating disorders.
Last year, Zara, 27, even became the first Love Island star to compete in Strictly Come Dancing – and has since unwittingly become the centre of a Strictly scandal after supposed footage of dancer Graziano Di Prima “screaming, kicking and spitting” at her in rehearsals was brought to the attention of the BBC.
Thanks to her public relationship with I’m A Celebrity winner Sam Thompson, and her stunning looks, Zara has fronted some huge advert campaigns, including L’Oreal Paris, and has over 2 million followers on Instagram.
Pretty impressive, considering she was dumped from the Love Island villa just 10 days after she entered as a bombshell in 2018 – coupling up with Adam Collard, who’d been with two other girls before her.
Last year, she even told Fabulous: “When I got dumped from the island, I was quite shocked.
“I thought I would be in there the whole time.
“When I came out, I definitely felt inferior to the other girls who were landing huge fashion deals. I felt really gutted about how my journey had gone.”
Coco Lodge
Coco Lodge was one of the rare Casa Amor girls who managed to get into the main villa, when Andrew Le Page chose to couple up with her over Tasha Ghouri in series eight.
However, despite the pair getting very frisky, she was dumped quite soon after, when Andrew went back to Tasha – and was forced to confess “I licked her t*t, or whatever.”
Andrew and Tasha ended up getting to the final, coming in fourth place, and are still together now.
But Coco isn’t bothered. She’s now dating global megastar DJ Joel Corry, and flies around the world with him.
In this year, alone, they’ve been to Thailand, Mexico, Barcelona, Sitges, and stayed in a £1400-a-week hotel in Bali.
Most recently, she was seen celebrating Joel’s birthday in Ibiza.
Chyna Mills
Chyna Mills entered Casa Amor with Coco, and also managed to make it into the main villa, coupling up with Jay Younger, who was one of the newer islanders.
The couple got dumped just four days after re-entering the villa, having had barely any airtime during this time.
However, Chyna is now engaged to Strictly Come Dancing pro Neil Jones and has a daughter, Havana, with him.
Thanks to her relationship with Neil, she’s often seen hanging out with other Strictly pros, including Janette Manrara, Aljaž Skorjanec and Gorka Marquez, with his partner Gemma Atkinson.
Jess Shears
Jess Shears came in as the first bombshell in series three of Love Island, immediately stealing Dom Lever from a devastated Montana Brown.
She was portrayed as a bunny boiler on the show, and was dumped by the public – on her own – 12 days later.
While Dom didn’t leave with Jess at first, he quit a week later, due to being miserable without her.
They got engaged very soon after, and were married a year after meeting, in Mykonos.
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Dom and Jess are still together now, and have two sons together – Presley, four, and a two-year-old they’ve not publicly named.
The couple have over 1.6 million followers between them and recently holidayed in Perth, Australia, even spending the day on a multi-million pound yacht.
The Alberti Twins
Back in 2015, John and Tony Alberti, AKA the Alberti Twins, became the first ever people to be dumped from Love Island.
However, far from falling off the face of the earth, the 38-year-old brothers are now TV chefs in the States, seen on The Today Show, with over 300,000 followers on Instagram.
After failing to couple up with any of the girls, John and Tony started up a blog and their YouTube cooking channel, where they whip up Italian favourites.
“That’s when we were spotted by an NBC producer in New York for the Today Show,” John told The Sun last year.
“It just escalated from there and we went straight out to America!”
Tony added: “The funny thing is we get recognised a lot in America for the cooking but over here for Love Island.
“We’ve been on the Today Show in New York, went on NBC, the Hallmark Channel in LA. We do a lot of cooking over in Toronto too, and we’ve got our cookbook out.
“We were in there the least amount of time but we’re now on TV in America doing what we love.
“You’ve got to work hard at it and you can achieve it.”