THEY may go into the villa looking for love – but the girls of Love Island come out with much more than just a boyfriend.
The biggest earners from the ITV2 show always seem to be the females, with the likes of Olivia Attwood and Molly-Mae Hague being two of the most successful stars.
Maura Higgins has even recently been rumoured to be replacing Maya Jama as host of Love Island – although Maya has denied she’s leaving.
Meanwhile, the guys they were dating on the show are, more often than not, left in the dust.
Revealing why, brand and culture expert Nick Ede says: “The girls will always do better. First of all, there are more actual opportunities for women in media and also in social media, than there are for guys in the respect that there’s loads of fast fashion brands, there’s loads of makeup brands that pounce on those stars and give them their 15 minutes of fame.
“It’s quite limited for a guy. Endorsements are either to do with sports or fitness plans, and there’s less opportunity.
“Social media users are largely female, and also more engaged than men, so they continue to follow the love lives of these Love island female heroines, and want to support them, because they feel they’ve been on this journey with them. Whereas the guys don’t have that kind of support.
“They’ll either have support from women who fancy them or from a few guys who want to look like them, but it’s never really particularly genuine or sustainable.”
He continues: “The women seem to have bigger personalities too, and more of a longevity. “They’re a bit like chameleons. They can do other stuff, and they feel like they’re much more engaging as well, and audiences like them, and they appeal to more of an audience, so they do other shows.
“They get given more opportunities than their male counterparts, and celebrity bookers want to use them more than they do the men.”
We look at the Love Island gender wealth gap – and how it happens time and time again…
Olivia Attwood got together with Chris Hughes on the 2017 series of Love Island – but they broke up just a few months later, while filming spin-off reality show Chris & Olivia: Crackin’ On.
She’s now worth £2 million, while Chris is worth a respectable £1.4 million.
The two were both very successful in their own right, at first, with Chris even bagging an ITV horse racing presenting job in 2019.
But, while he hasn’t done that since, Olivia has become a very successful presenter, fronting a couple of ITV documentaries, as well as hosting hit dating show Bad Boyfriends – which will be back for a second series next year.
On top of this, she’s become a regular panelist on Loose Women and has her own jewellery collection with Abbott Lyon.
Maura Higgins was the stand-out star of Love Island 2019, and is often regarded as one of the best bombshells in the show’s history.
She got together with Curtis Pritchard on the show, before breaking up with him just a few months later.
While Curtis was successful at first – with a bit-part in Hollyoaks along with his brother AJ Pritchard – he’s now doing panto, starring in Cinderella at Fareham Live, Hampshire.
Meanwhile, Maura has just come off of I’m A Celebrity, and is rumoured to be replacing Maya Jama on Love Island, having already presented the spin-off show in the States.
While she’s worth a whopping £3.2 million, Curtis’ bank balance stands at £400,000
Kem Cetinay is arguably one of the more successful lads from Love Island, as the host of The Capital Weekender on Capital radio.
But his ex Amber Davies – who he won Love Island 2017 with – has earned almost £2 million more than him, thanks to a very successful West End career.
She has bagged the lead roles in the stage versions of films Pretty Woman, Back To The Future, Bring It On and 9 To 5.
She also hosts very successful musical podcast Call To Stage – on which she recently interviewed the cast of the Wicked movie, including Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
Tasha Ghouri and Andrew Le Page met on the 2022 series of Love Island and their relationship has been going strong ever since.
But there’s no denying Tasha is the more famous of the two.
Thanks to her stunning model looks, she bagged a deal with eBay, becoming their first pre-loved ambassador, as soon as she came off the show.
Born deaf, also has her own podcast, Superpowers With Tasha, which promotes awareness of disability and has published a novel, Hits Different.
Having recently made it to the Strictly final, wowing the judges and viewers with her dancing, experts have even predicted Tasha – who’s already worth £2 million – will “spark a TV bidding war”.
Meanwhile, boyfriend Andrew has been very supportive, and worked with brands including Subway and Just Eat, but has earned half the amount his girlfriend has.
After meeting on Love Island in 2019, Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury became the most successful couple of all time, from the show.
While Molly-Mae bagged the £400,000-a-month job of creative director at PrettyLittleThing, Tommy was fast becoming a very well-paid boxer, earning a reported $10 million (£8m) for his victory against KSI last year, alone.
But since their split in August, Tommy’s career has been in a downward spiral.
Jake Paul has blasted him a “muppet,” and he’s been forced to cancel a boxing match against Darren Till.
Meanwhile, Molly-Mae – who is worth double her ex – has just released a trailer for her docuseries coming to Prime Video in January.
Amber Gill and Greg O’Shea won Love Island together in 2019 – but even she has said, in reality, she was Love Island’s “first single winner”.
They split up soon after and it’s not surprising that Amber has earned £2.7 million, while Greg is worth just £700,000.
Straight after leaving the villa, Amber landed a £1 million deal with clothing line Miss Pap – the biggest brand deal ever at that point.
She also released a novel in 2022, called Until I Met You, and was a judge on Channel 4 show Josh Must Win earlier this year, along with Pete Wicks, Nick Grimshaw and Vicky Pattison.
Greg did go on to play rugby in the 2022 Olympics, but previously spoke about how he turned down huge six-figure brand deals that could have changed his life – and how he’s not a millionaire, like Amber.
Love Island All Stars will be back for its second series in 2025 - and rumours are already rife as to who will be making a comeback this time around.
After the second All Stars series was announced in May, show boss Mike Spender said: “Lots of people have been in contact about it, lots of fun people, from series one onwards.
“We cast it because we knew what was going on behind the scenes of who was getting with who and now even more stories have come out.
“I think we will now save ex-islanders for All Stars.”
One rumoured name for the next series is data engineer Harry Baker.
Harry, 25, arrived in the villa as a bombshell in Series 11. He soon ‘stole’ Grace Jackson after making his debut.
Arriving late in the run, he only lasted for a few days before being dumped alongside Lola Deloca.
Despite the hunk’s brief stint, viewers have called for Harry’s return.
One upset fan wrote: “Get you in All Stars next”, to which Harry cryptically replied by posting ‘shrugging’ emojis.
Zara McDermott and Adam Collard got together on the 2018 series of Love Island – and dated for seven months after the show, until he reportedly dumped her by text.
Although they’re now worth the same amount, there’s no denying Zara is more successful than Adam.
While Zara has been on Strictly, had a string of successful documentaries, and also joined forces with the Princess of Wales for the Shaping Us campaign last year, Adam went back into Love Island for a second time in 2022.
The personal trainer is now expecting a baby with another woman more successful than him, Sky Sports presenter Laura Woods – who he also got engaged to earlier this year.
Along with Tasha and Andrew, Indiyah Polack and Dami Hope are one of the lasting couples from the 2022 series of Love Island.
And like them, he’s been on the sidelines supporting his girlfriend while her star has risen massively.
After leaving the villa, she became PrettyLittleThing’s first Marketplace ambassador and an ambassador for Boots.
She’s also the co-host of the official Love Island podcast, and sits on the sofa with Sam Thompson on Love Island: Aftersun every week, chatting with Maya.
On top of that, she’s hosted the MOBOs and even interviewed Rihanna for Fenty Hair earlier this year.
