Maya Jama may have impressed many viewers with her sparkling new role as Love Island host this year, but it appears that even the Bristolian bombshell can't save the ITV2 reality show. After the ninth series of Love Island wrapped up last week, a fashion insider has claimed that a rule change has put people off applying for the tenth series, which is due to hit our screens this summer.
This year's islanders have left the villa with much fewer followers than expected, due to a social media ban that stopped them from growing their online presence while in the villa. Last week, fashion giant PrettyLittleThing announced that they would not be signing anyone to their brand, having previously taken on creative director Molly-Mae Hague and season eight star Gemma Owen.
After applications for the next round of Love Island recently opened, insiders have claimed that interest in being on the show has "slumped" already, as budding influencers are reluctant to sign up because they could miss out on lucrative deals with fashion brands. Speaking to MailOnline, one insider claimed: "There are fewer applicants for Love Island this summer."
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"The ban has exposed what we all know: that the show is all about landing lucrative deals, not finding love," they continued.
Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan claimed victory at the end of the ninth series, but, the day after they left the luxury villa in South Africa, they had just 173,000 and 153,000 Instagram followers respectively. To put the impact of the social media ban into perspective, last summer, Michael Owen's daughter Gemma finished the series with over one million Instagram followers, with her family's frequent posts increasing her following by 920,000, despite the dressage star not even winning.
Jessie Renee Wynter has the highest following of the series nine cohort, having left the villa with 720,000, although this is, arguably, because she already had a social media presence thanks to appearing on Love Island Australia. None of the contestants from the second winter edition have amasssed a following of more than one million, although her boyfriend Will Young has around 500,000 followers, although he was known pre-villa for his viral farming TikToks.
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