It’s no secret that the Love Island lot all end up getting to know each other in the outside world so, if you’re on All Stars, then chances are you’re going to have bumped into a least a few of the Islanders you’re in the villa with.
We know that a few of the Islanders on the second series of All Stars had history, like Kaz Crossley and Elma Pazar, who have been besties for years, and of course it’s common knowledge now that Ronnie Vint had previously slid into Olivia Hawkins’ DMs.
But one pair we didn’t realise knew each other – at least until pictures of them came to light towards the end of the series – is runners-up Grace Jackson and Luca Bish. They’ve now broken their silence on their relationship before the villa and, honestly, it kinda sounds like they were always meant to be.
In an appearance on the Wednesdays podcast, Grace and Luca spoke about their history and it quickly came to light that he slid into her DMs just weeks before they entered the Cape Town villa.
Luca was discussing his DMs to Samie Elishi when he let slip, 'I said Merry Christmas to Grace recently,' before Grace added, ‘I got a Merry Christmas two months ago at Christmas.’
Well, they kept that one quiet, didn’t they?
As for those pictures of Luca at a boxing match where Grace was a ring girl back in 2023, she explained, ‘We’ve met in like a social setting with a bit of a work that I’ve done and to be honest, we didn’t really speak much, did we?
‘We didn’t speak, like we said hello. I’ve always thought you were good looking, but we just didn’t… I don’t know, I was also very anti-boyfriend or anything like that. Me and my best friend at the time, we were just having fun and working and I just think we never really spoke, but we knew of each other.’
Luca added, ‘We wasn’t really in the environment to speaking, like boxing. While she’s in the ring, “can I pull you for a chat?”’
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Nathan Katnoria is heat and Closer online’s senior digital writer. He became obsessed with Love Island when Malin Andersson came back to confront Terry Walsh in series two and hasn’t looked back since. When he’s not interviewing former Islanders, Nathan is scrolling through their Instagram feeds for relationship updates and piping hot tea.