If there's one thing we love more than a juicy reality TV crossover (like when Zara McDermott made the move from Love Island to Made in Chelsea, or when Elma Pazar hopped from Love Island to TOWIE), it's an unexpected telly genre crossover; like a former reality star – like, say, Sam Thompson – being asked to guest star on a popular, long-running soap series – like, say, EastEnders.
During our weekly debrief with Sam and Pete Wicks via their Staying Relevant podcast(which, not to brag, is recorded under our roof these days), the boys, as per, shared what they've been doing to stay relevant this week. While Pete said that he spent hours capturing sexy bike content for his socials in the great Essex outdoors, Sam revealed something nobody saw coming – cue the EastEnders' theme tune.
Yep, that adorably posh human Golden Retriever Sam Thompson, of Made in Chelsea fame and now, of course, one of the co-hosts of Love Island: Aftersun and the official Love Island podcast, was apparently approached by one of the major British soaps this week. According to Sam, he was asked to appear as someone other than Sam Thompson (which, tbh, we are really struggling to imagine) in some sort of guest star capacity.
Although the soap in question was not named, we couldn't help but immediately envision Sam's iconic Albert Square promo shot. Again, we can't confirm that the soap in question is EastEnders, but after listening to the chat seven or eight times out of sheer disbelief, we're guessing it was either EastEnders or Hollyoaks. To be fair, though, Emmerdale is a justified guess, too - the Chelsea lot are rather partial to the country, aren't they?
Sam said, "I got asked this week to make an appearance in a very well known soap".
He continued, "We're not allowed to say the name, basically. [It wasn't] like full-time."
Pete interjected in the most Pete way, saying, "This is what I'm slightly confused about... You're now a jack of all trades. You're a radio DJ, you're a TV presenter, you're a TikTok star, you're an influencer, you're ex reality TV, you're a podcaster... have you now added actor to the bio? Because it's not very often that someone that hasn't shown an interest in being an actor, they randomly pluck out names and go, 'I wonder if he wants to be in it?' Unless someone's shown an interest in potentially doing some acting. They just asked me to be in it..."
Sam went on to explain that that's actually exactly what happened, assuring Pete (and their very confused listeners) that he hadn't put any feelers out there, nor let the industry know that he's looking for acting opportunities (insert joke here about MIC being completely unscripted).
Interestingly, Sam was actually keen to join the mystery soap in question (which we're still convinced is EastEnders, mainly because we're now manifesting it), but that "the powers that be" wouldn't let him – which we're guessing is either ITV or his management. He said, "I said yes, actually, but the powers that be said no. I wanted to do it."
To be fair, our Sam is a busy boy these days; perhaps Pete could go on instead now that he's given TOWIE the boot? It sounds like he's got a bit more spare time, tbf.
Honestly, seeing Pete bike his way on to Albert Square like some modern-day Danny Zuko might kill us off.