It's well known that the majority of Love Island stars rack in a tonne of cash when they leave the villa, even if they're the first to be booted from the show.
However, what fans might not know is that the contestants get paid wages while they're in the villa itself.
So, how much do the Islanders get paid for appearing in the show? Well, Love Island: All Stars bombshell Tom Clare has spilled the beans on how much Islanders earn (kinda) and it's probably not as much as you might think.
Chatting to Closer at Winter Wonderland last year alongside fellow winter Love Island 2023 star Ron Hall, Tom dropped a major hint about the fee Islanders get paid when asked if he’d return to the show for All Stars.
“I think once you’ve done it, that’s your experience there,” the former semi-pro footballer told us. Obviously he’s changed his tune since then – or was telling us a massive fib.
Tom then joked he would agree to go on the show for the price of Ron’s Prada bag, which costs somewhere between £1,300 and £2,000 – a surprisingly low fee for five weeks inside the villa for All Stars.
It was previously reported that All Stars contestants were being offered £2,000 a week to appear on the show, which is a whopping 473 per cent increase on the £375 weekly earnings contestants get paid on the normal series.
However, a TV insider claimed that potential contestants weren’t happy with the two grand wages and were demanding more money.
“They are pushing ITV for more cash because they're saying £2,000 a week isn't enough. Many of the Islanders rely on their social media deals to make cash and by going into the villa, their revenue source will be down,” the source told The Sun.
Last year, Love Island 2022's Jay Younger revealed that Islanders get "minimum wage" while they're in the villa as well as extra one-off payments for any sponsored or branded content.
Speaking on The Big Jim Show, he explained, "Once they send through the contract, I think they pay you like £375 a week. It’s very low; it’s like minimum wage. £375 a week and they’ll pay for any ad hoc advertisements you do.
"So like, you might be holding a bottle and they might pay you a fee for that. I can’t remember what that was. They’ll pay you if you’re wearing certain sponsored clothes – if they see you on camera with that. But it’s not about the money, it’s about the exposure it’s meant to give you after."
The money doesn't stop when the Islanders have left the villa either as Jay revealed the Islanders also get paid for going to ITV events. He said, "They invite you to events after which they pay you like £1,200 – like an ITV commercial event, something like that."
Tom and Jay aren't the first Islanders to speak out about how much they get paid by Love Island bosses. Chatting on a podcast for dating app Bumble back in November 2022, Dami Hope confirmed that the amount the cast get paid isn't going to set their bank accounts alight.
"The money's not that much," he said, accurately.
But our sympathies are pretty limited. They get free food, accommodation and up to eight weeks in the sun on a paid-for holiday. Sounds alright from here.
Back in 2018, Love Island hosted a Christmas reunion that saw Ellie Brown and Charlie Brake have a big fight and Sam Bird confront Georgia Steel about the end of their relationship.
It's safe to say that the episode was explosive but what's more shocking is that the reality stars were only paid £10 an hour for their time.
And, apparently, the contestants were shocked when they found out how little their fee was, with a source saying, "They have been in uproar over being paid so little for two days’ work. It almost isn’t worth hours of awkward conversation with your ex — which for many of the islanders will be the case now.
“A few have even discussed dropping out to avoid any unnecessary aggravation. The low fees have also upset their agents, who are used to dealing with much bigger contracts."