With just four winning couples across 11 series of Love Island still together, Millie Court and Liam Reardon are in the minority when it comes to their relationship but, despite three years together, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.
From the moment Millie, 27, entered the Love Island villa as a bombshell for season seven, she and Liam, 25, were inseparable. And although Liam was briefly unfaithful to Millie during his stint in Casa Amor, the pair went on to win the 2021 series.
After a brief split which began in July 2022, by the spring of following year the pair were back together and have been going from strength to strength ever since. But now the couple are facing their latest relationship challenge: long distance. They chat to Closer about how it’s all going.
Does it feel surreal that your love story began on a reality show?
Liam: Yes, very surreal! It’s almost like it didn’t happen, but then we get to watch it back and remember that it did!
So you’ve watched back your series of Love Island?
Millie: We watched a few episodes here and there over the summer. Not the whole series though because it’s quite a commitment.
Who from your series of the show
are you still in touch with?
M: Obviously Chloe Burrows is my best friend. And then Liam is very close with Aaron Francis and Chuggs [Oliver Wallis]. It’s hard to keep in touch with everyone though – there were nearly 40 of us in the series when you count all the bombshells and Casa Amor.
When you’re both hanging out with Chloe, who’s the third wheel?
L: I’m the third wheel. She and Chloe are in a relationship and I’m the guy on the side.
M: We like to wind Liam up and gang up on him a little bit.
You previously struggled with the pressure of your relationship being in the public eye, didn’t you?
M: As the winners, when we first came off the show all eyes were on us. And we had that for a year because there wasn’t a winter series. It was a lot of pressure. But when we broke up, we worked on our relationship in private which helped us build a stronger foundation. Now we feel more confident in our relationship and we’ve got more control over it.
L: There have been four series of Love Island now, so it’s just me and Millie in our relationship. Before, it felt like it was me, Millie and the whole of UK.
Do you ever feel a little bit jealous when you see the next batch of Islanders heading into the villa?
M: We feel excited for them – they’re about to have the best summer of their lives.
And you wouldn’t change anything about your own experience in the villa?
L: If you’re happy right now, you shouldn’t change the path that you took to get there.
You’re launching a podcast about the highs and lows of long-distance dating. How do you both find being long distance?
L: Honestly, it’s fine. When I first told Millie last year that I was going back to Wales, it was hard. We thought that it was going to put a strain on our relationship, but that hasn’t been the case.
M: We’ve been doing long distance for a while now, and it’s going really well. And the podcast is good because we’re going to show our listeners that although you have to put a lot of effort into making long distance work, it’s worth it for love.
How did you have to adjust?
M: We just take it day by day. We didn’t really know what to expect and how we were going to make it work with our schedules, but we combine our diaries and we text and talk all the time. We don’t go a day without speaking to each other.
L: Whenever something comes to my mind, I just want to pick up the phone to ring Millie and tell her. Or I ring to get her advice – her advice is my favourite advice.
M: If I didn’t trust Liam, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing long distance. We can be apart for two weeks at a time and if I didn’t trust him, I would be wondering what he’s up to. I know what Liam’s up to because we chat every day – I have complete trust.
Is the plan to live together eventually?
M: We don’t currently have any plans to move in together. If something’s not broken, don’t fix it. And we don’t know what’s going to be happening work-wise.
Liam and Millie's podcast Liam and Millie launched 1 October