If you ask us, it was a sad day when Love Island’s Harriet Blackmore and Ronnie Vint were dumped from the villa – but, as the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. In this case, the silver lining is that they get to come to Closer HQ and spill loads of behind-the-scenes show secrets.
And spill they did.
During our exclusive chat with Harriett and Ronnie, the self-proclaimed Brighton It Girl set the record straight on Love Island 2024 co-star Matilda Draper after she was accused of instigating Harriett’s explosive fire pit row with Ciaran Davies.
ICYMI or you need us to jog your memory, things kicked off between Harriett and Ciaran during a game of Never Have I Ever when the Welsh rugby lad took aim at Harriett for being “two-faced”. After she hit back and called him “immature”, Ciaran brutally quipped, “Alright, cool, I haven't been like second choice three times in here, so..."
However, Harriett didn’t initially hear Ciaran’s put-down and Matilda asked him to repeat it, which led to her storming off in tears. Some viewers took to social to call out Matilda following the altercation, with one writing, “Matilda is such a shit stirrer because instead of defending Harriett when Ciaran first made the comment, she laughed and told him to repeat it and now she wants to act like a good Samaritan.”
Another added, “I know that’s not chief stirrer Matilda tryna mediate the same situation she literally made a 1000x worse?”
However, Harriett has defended Matilda amid the backlash and insisted she didn’t mean anything by it.
“I feel like watching some of the scenes back, like obviously we were there and we know how it happened,” Harriett said.
“There was a scene around the fire pit with mine and Ciaran’s argument and everyone was saying, ‘I can't believe Matilda just created the situation and she's running off to Harriet’, but actually she didn't do that.
“She was being a good friend by making Ciaran say it again.”
It seems like Harriett will remain firm friends with Matilda after the show as she name-checked the Beckenham babe as one of her “bestest friends” alongside Grace Jackson, Sean Stone and Joey Essex.
They’ve even planned a trip to Ibiza for Grace’s birthday. Aww.