Nobody could believe their eyes when the Love Island villa was graced with the presence of a TOWIE star and not just any two-bit extra, THE Joey Essex.
Not only were the viewing public, the Islanders, and us here at Closer HQ shocked by his arrival on the dating show, it turns out not even his family knew that he was heading into the Love Island 2024 villa.
Joey's cousin, Demi Sims chatted to Love Island 2022 finalist, Chloe Burrows on her Chloe vs. The World podcast about him taking part in the romance reality TV show and admitted she was just as shocked as we were.
"No idea," she confessed, "It was quite a nice surprise though."
Chloe also quizzed Demi about the Joey x Samantha Kenny x Grace Jackson love triangle (well, former triangle) that has rocked the villa and the House of Sims star had THOUGHTS.
"She has had a bit of a mare," Demi said when Chloe hinted that perhaps one of the reason's Joey's head did turn was because Samantha seemed to talk about TOWIE more than we do. And we talk about TOWIE a lot.
"You can’t blame an edit because you said what you said," Chloe explained before adding, "However, there’s got to be context, she can't constantly be talking about TOWIE."
Both the girlies know what it's like to be on a reality TV program and therefore know how the 'edit' can be cropped to make you look a certain way, for example, obsessed with The Only Way is Essex.
"Every time they’re showing her, they’re only showing parts of the conversation and it’s like when she comes out, she’s going to be like ‘What the hell?'", Demi went on. "When she first came on she was a proper strong independent girl and I feel like Joey was really into that."
"I feel like watching her over these past couple of episodes she’s gone a little bit into her shell," the youngest Sims sibling explained. "I want her to be that strong girl she was at the beginning."
"I don’t know if she feels a little bit insecure that Joey’s going to leave her for another girl."
Well, clearly this podcast was filmed before things progessed as, erm, that's exactly what happened and now Samantha has been booted from the villa.
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Emily Vierke is a digital writer for heat and Closer Online who enjoys stalking The Love Island girlies for fashion inspo especially Indiyah Polack and Ella Thomas. Emily has a soft spot for TOWIE OGs Amy and Harry, mainly because she was also not aware that the capital of India was New Delhi she DID, however, know that know it wasn't France.