A multi-millionaire by the age of just 22, Molly-Mae Hague's rise to the top has been fast and extremely impressive.
After being named runner up of Love Island 2018 with boxer boyfriend Tommy Fury, she's watched her influencer career go from strength-to-strength - with a bank balance to match.
She insists her reality TV fame hasn't played a part in her success, which last week saw her become creative director of fast fashion brand PrettyLittleThing in a rumoured seven-figure deal.
Molly-Mae was already a successful fashion influencer when she headed into the villa, and she won Miss Teen Hertfordshire and World Teen Supermodel UK when she was 16.
But since packing her Love Island-branded suitcase and flying back to the UK after her stint on the hit ITV show, she's rarely spoken about her time on the programme.
She explained to The Sun : "I think a lot of it has come to light about me distancing myself from the show because of the new show, but really I have been doing that from the very start.
"When I came out of Love Island, I never wanted to be known as a Love Islander because I felt it closed me off to a lot of other opportunities that I have now explored in the way I distanced myself.
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"I do believe, if I had stuck with ‘I’m just a Love Islander, I’m just a Love Islander’, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here now as the creative director of PLT," she added.
Before she entered the Love Island villa as a bombshell, Molly-Mae had around 10,000 YouTube subscribers and 100,000 Instagram followers - as well as her own agent.
She now has a whopping 6million followers on Instagram and 1.57million subscribers on her YouTube channel.
Upon leaving the ITV2 show, she was inundated with offers for deals with brands who were keen to capitalise off her huge following which then stood at around 2million.
She signed her first £50,000 deal with PrettyLittleThing but turned down £350,000 and an £80,000 Range Rover from rival fashion brand Missguided.
The reason? She just didn't like the clothes, and unlike some of her fellow Love Island stars, Molly-Mae did not want to plug everything that came her way.
Her manager Francesca Britton explained to The Sun: "They said to me, 'We’re obsessed with Molly-Mae, we’d love her to be the face of our brand, we want her to work with us.’
"I thought, ‘Brilliant!’ and then I said to her, ‘How do you feel about that?’ She said no. I said: ‘Why? You told me you want [to buy] that house.’
"She said, ‘No I don’t buy my clothes from there.’"
With her business brain working hard, she invested a huge amount of her own cash in a luxury giveaway that would end up earning her 1million new followers.
In September 2020, she splashed out £8,000 on Apple and Louis Vuitton prizes for fans, as long as they followed her, subscribed to her channel, tagged a friend and “liked” her fake tan brand.
Industry experts estimate that she made a return on investment of less than 1p per follower, but the increase in following as well as love from her fans was priceless and with her huge following, she can now charge around £10,000 for a sponsored Instagram post.
Molly-Mae would then sign another Pretty Little Thing deal, this time worth £600,000, and she also partnered with brands EGO shoes, BeautyWorks and Starbucks.
She started up her own fake tan company, Filter By Molly-Mae, which is stocked on Pretty Little Thing.
Accounts show that her company, MMH Group Holdings, raked in £11,000 per week between August 2019 and August 2020- a number expected to balloon even higher with her latest deal.
This week, Molly-Mae announced that she’d finally made one of her dreams come true, as it was revealed she is the new creative director for PrettyLittleThing in the UK and Europe.
"This is the biggest move in my career so far and I can’t explain my gratitude to my favourite brand in the world for trusting me with this role," she said in a post on Instagram.
She also revealed that she’s already designed her first clothing collection in her new role, which is available to buy now.
But many social media users criticised her appointment, arguing it should have gone to someone with relevant qualifications and experience.
Others pointed out PLT has been accused of modern slavery after journalists from the Sunday Times discovered staff were being paid about £3.50 an hour in one of their garment factories in Leicester, while the company founder, Umar Kamani, is a billionaire.
There is also fierce criticism of the fast fashion industry in general, which is contributing to climate change by mass-producing clothes that will typically be worn once.
But Molly-Mae was undeterred, celebrating by posting a picture of her new £37,000 Cartier bracelet as a reward for all her hard work.
Boohoo Group, which owns PLT, said in a statement in the wake of the Sunday Times’ report: "Boohoo remains committed to supporting UK manufacturing and is determined to drive up standards where this is required.
"Where help and support for improvement is required we have and will continue to provide it, to ensure that everyone working to produce clothing in Leicester is properly remunerated, at least the National Minimum Wage, fairly treated and safe at work.
"However, we will not hesitate to immediately terminate relationships with any supplier who is found not to be acting within both the letter and spirit of our supplier code of conduct. This includes very clear expectations on transparency about second tier suppliers."
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