Love Island bosses address possible Joey Essex-style celebrity bombshell in upcoming series

7 June 2025, 10:00

While "something big" is coming to the Love Island villa this June, it's not a celebrity - ITV bosses have confirmed.

Last summer, ITV stepped up their game when they introduced their first-ever celebrity contestant on Love Island with Joey Essex arriving as a bombshell on day one.

He left the villa arm-in-arm with Jessy Potts, but they later split which led to speculation that he'd show up on Love Island All Stars. While he ruled that out ahead of the January series, Joey remains single and seemingly in the perfect position to appear on Love Island again.

However, although the show's creative director Mike Spencer has teased something as big as Joey's entrance is coming again, he has confirmed it's not Joey.

• Read more: Love Island director reveals major privacy change for 2025 show
• Read more: Are Love Island's Scott Thomas and Jessy Potts dating?

"Last year, I knew about Joey Essex and I said, ‘Trust me in week one something big is coming'... something big is coming in week one," he said before affirming: "It's not Joey Essex."

He also confirmed that other celebrity names that had been rumoured were not in talks to appear on the show this year. The specific names he shut down were TOWIE and CBB star Ella Rae Wise as well as Katie Price and Peter Andre's daughter Princess.

In May 2025 the tabloids reported that Ella was being thought of as "the next Joey Essex" of the show, but Mike has poured cold water on this claim.

With that being said the show's creative director has said a never-been-done-before twist is coming to this season.

He told Capital: "The way the islanders are coupled up is completely different. There will be things happening the first couple of days that we’ve not done before.

"And certainly [in] week one there’s something incredibly big coming that we’ve never done before, hopefully we can pull it off."

There has been speculation that following his split from Harriett Blackmore, Ronnie would be appearing as a bombshell on the upcoming season.

Following their split, one fan wrote on Reddit: "They'll be back together in a month."

And another replied: "Ronnie will be the big post Casa bombshell by then."

"Please don't give the producers ideas," another joked.

Love Islanders do two truths and a lie

After appearing on almost all the reality TV shows the UK has to offer, Joey appeared on Netflix's Selling Sunset in September in 2024 but has seemingly taken a break from telly since then.

Following his Love Island stint he began his boxing career and was even rumoured to have a match against fellow Love Island star Tommy Fury.

Read more about Love Island here:

• Love Island insider announces major 'never-been-done-before' twist for week one
• Love Island fans figure out 'real reason' why Harriett and Ronnie broke up
• Love Island's Harriett Blackmore breaks silence on second Ronnie Vint split
• Love Island's Curtis Pritchard breaks silence on Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu split
• Love Island director reveals major privacy change for 2025 show
• Why did Love Island's Harriett and Ronnie split?
• Love Island's Casey 'is returning to the villa for a fourth time' after Gabby split

Listen live to Capital, and catch up on any shows you missed, on Global Player.