Love Island is back and Maya Jama wasted no time in revealing a major twistDan Laurie Deputy Editor of Screen Time and Peter Harris
21:40, 09 Jun 2025Updated 21:44, 09 Jun 2025
Love Island has made a sizzling return, and Maya Jama introduced a jaw-dropping new twist in the latest series opener.
A dozen fresh-faced singletons strutted into the villa for the first episode on Monday (June 9), ready to stir up some summer romance.
The ladies – Shakira, Meg, Alima, Sophie, Megan, and Helena – were busy mingling when host Maya Jama gatecrashed their bonding session.
Without beating around the bush, Maya quizzed them about their dream blokes.
Shakira spilled to the telly star: “Tall, muscly, nice smile but for me it’s all about personality. Witty, funny, charming.”, reports OK!
The girls had to make their choice blind
Helena couldn’t help but giggle as she confessed: “Personality always, my bar is low, I’m not fussy” while Alima was on the hunt for “a Prince Charming Disney Prince… with no facial hair..”
Maya then dropped a bombshell that left the girls gobsmacked: “This year things are slightly different.”
She teased, “You’ve told me what your type on paper is, but does that match your ideal man in reality? Come and join me by the pool.”
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With the girls lined up, Maya revealed: “Girls, in front of you there are six love hearts and each boy has given me their dating profile which is written on each of these hearts – shall we have a look at what these boys have to offer?”.
The boards presented this year’s lads – Ben, Dejon, Harry, Conor, Blu, and Tommy – through profiles that included their names, ages, jobs, and cheeky headlines like “I like to play hard and work harder! I love to play, so I work very hard”, leaving the girls to pick their partners based solely on these intriguing snippets.
The girls deliberated over profiles before Maya counted down and they dashed to claim a standee heart, the twist allowing only one girl a heart.
As each lad strolled into the villa to meet their prospective partner, all waited to see if sparks would fly from just words on paper or were the ladies hasty in leaping at a supposed type?
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Fans were quick to hit up X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to voice their astonishment at the unexpected turn of events.
One eager viewer wrote: “The potential of picking without seeing their looks EATS!”
The girls had to decide using the guys’ dating profiles
Another fan pondered how the surprise could have had an even greater wow factor: “I didn’t clock in the preview that the boards had the boys names on them, would’ve been more fun if they didn’t.”
While one spectator admitted: “Okay. I like this blind thing.”
Another chimed in with anticipation: “OKAYYY they’re really switching it up this year I expect big things.”
Anticipation has been high since executive Mike Spencer-Hayter teased about the novel show-starter: “Something big is coming in week one. We’ve got a really big week one planned. It’s hard to say what we’re doing without saying it. It’s not a celebrity. We’ve not seen it before.”
Love Island airs Sunday – Friday at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.