Joey Essex becomes Love Island’s first ever celebrity contestant as hit reality show returns | Ents & Arts News

Actuality TV star Joey Essex has entered the Love Island villa because the present’s first ever celeb contestant.

The 33-year-old, who rose to fame on The Solely Approach Is Essex, has mentioned he’s taking half within the present as a result of he’s “extraordinarily single proper now” and hopes to go away the island “hand in hand with the love of my life”.

The ITV courting collection returned on Monday, introducing extra contestants to the villa in Majorca, Spain, with host Maya Jama making an entrance in a white gown.

Jama instructed the contestants: “Effectively it is good to see you are all settled in, as you already know you might be in Love Island, you will need to all the time anticipate the surprising.

“So please welcome Joey.”

The TV character mentioned he was “the king of Essex” who wished to seek out his “queen”.

ITV says he’s the present’s “first celeb contestant”.

Essex selected to use to be on the present himself earlier than ITV bosses labored laborious to maintain his involvement a secret, in keeping with The Solar.

Talking completely to the newspaper earlier than flying out to the villa, Essex mentioned: “I really feel like Joey Bond, ‘the identify’s Essex, Joey Essex’. It felt like a army operation, not even the journey itself however the strategy of even getting by means of the applying course of and so far… I am extraordinarily single proper now, so I am praying that I’ll stroll out of the villa hand in hand with the love of my life, that is my most important intention and all I care about.”

Following his appearances on The Solely Approach Is Essex between 2011 and 2013, Essex featured on comparable exhibits together with I am A Celeb… Get Me Out Of Right here!, Celeb SAS: Who Dares Wins, Celeb MasterChef, Celebs Go Relationship and Dancing On Ice.

Love Island started as Celeb Love Island in 2005, with contestants together with Calum Finest, Rebecca Loos and Lee Sharpe, with a second collection airing in 2006, earlier than a revamped model of the present with out celebrities was launched in 2015.

Earlier than Essex’s look on Love Island, Jama instructed the opposite contestants: “First impressions depend. Girls and boys, I now need you to price one another so as of who you assume has come throughout essentially the most like boyfriend and girlfriend materials, proper all the way down to who has given the least relationship vibes.”

Jama then revealed the rankings would imply who they had been paired with.

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The {couples} included Mimii Ngulube, 24, a psychological well being nurse from Portsmouth, and Munveer Jabbal, 30, a recruitment supervisor from Surbiton; and Nicole Samuel, 24, an accounts supervisor from Aberdare, and Sean Stone, 24, a salesman from Hertford.

Different companions had been Samantha Kenny, 26, a make-up artist from Liverpool, and Sam Taylor, 23, a hair stylist from Chesterfield; Harriett Blackmore, 24, a dancer and private shopper from Brighton, and Ciaran Davies, 21, a surveyor from Pencoed, South Wales; and Jess White, 25, a retail supervisor from Stockport, and semi-professional footballer Ronnie Vint, 27, from London.

Ayo Odukoya, 25, a mannequin from Canning City, and Patsy Area, 29, an workplace administrator from Orpington, had been additionally joined collectively.

Patsy, who was born with Erb’s palsy – a paralysis of the arm brought on by damage to the higher group of the arm’s most important nerves ensuing from a troublesome beginning – revealed that she shares her mattress along with her mom.

She defined that her mom didn’t have a spot in her residence for her to remain aside from in the identical room.

Elsewhere within the episode, Ciaran admitted to “being with” a lady over the age of 40 when he was 18.

Love Island continues at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX on Tuesday.