Love Island is a reality star-making factory, with over 300 contestants entering the ITV dating show, but only a few have the ability to sustain a long-lasting career and Olivia Attwood is one of them.
Although the series intends to help singletons find romance while staying in a luxury villa, for a select few, it’s also provided a showbiz career launchpad.
While most hopefuls return to their day job with nothing but tales of a talking stage, a few have been able to claw their way into the nation’s hearts and stay there.
Molly-Mae Hague has over 8 million followers on Instagram, has set up a successful fake tan brand, Filter, and has partnered with prestigious brands such as M&S. The widespread coverage of her breakup from Tommy Fury, with everyone from BBC to Dominos reporting on the news, is indicative of just how big she has become.
Then there’s Zara McDermott and Tasha Ghouri who’ve both made it onto the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing, and Wes Nelson who found himself dueting with rap superstar French Montana.
If you were asked to name 10 islanders on Family Fortunes, it’s likely Olivia’s name would crop up.
And the survey says that the former contestant from London has remained a firm fixture on TV after competing in the 2017 series.
Olivia may have finished third with then-boyfriend Chris Hughes, but since departing, she’s been non-stop winning and her career is now hitting another milestone.
Let’s take a look at her meteoric rise through the ranks and her latest TV project…
Model behaviour
Before being scouted for Love Island, Olivia, 33, was earning money as a model – her most regular job was as a motorsport ‘grid girl’ for drinks company Monster Energy for around six years.
It’s a popular point of entry into the entertainment world, with stars including Kelly Brook and Jodie Marsh previously taking on the now-defunct job.
‘Modelling’s really tough, it’s not consistent, so the grid work was something that I always had, every weekend, and it was one of my favourite gigs and it paid really well compared to standard promotion work,’ she previously told The Sun.
‘I was part of a real family at Monster and I got to mix with all sorts of people and travel the world. I was flying to different countries every week and it was amazing. We had a team and fan base, we’d do calendars and signings, we were more like personalities.’
While doing the job, she soon found herself on the radar of the casting team behind one of ITV’s most-watched shows…
Love Island finalist
After two years of being chased by Love Island producers, Olivia finally relented after breaking up with footballer boyfriend Bradley Dack.
She quickly found a connection with Chris Hughes, but what was even stronger was the relationship she formed with viewers.
Audiences fell for the self-titled f**k boy whisperer’s no-nonsense attitude and humorous one-liners. She is often credited as reviving the phrase ‘ick’ used to communicate when a partner or potential partner unexpectedly puts you off and has wormed its way into many of our vocabularies as we deal with the horrors of romance in 2024.
Soundbites from her appearance are still used on social media seven years later. Most famously when Chris told Olivia to ‘sit back down’ and she quickly responded… ‘I’m sat’.
She made it to the final, eventually won by pal Amber Davies and Kem Cetinay, and while some stars have since distanced themselves from the show that made them famous, Olivia has always been proud of her TV training ground.
‘I feel really sentimental about my Love Island experience and all the great memories I had on the show,’ she previously told Metro.co.uk.
‘I’m very proud of that show, and I’ll always reaffirm my connection with it.’
Having found a set of fans, Olivia began to put herself to work as soon as she was let loose in the real world…
Reality TV Queen
Following the normal route of female reality stars, Olivia turned her hand to influencing. Becoming a role model for women desperate to look like her, she promoted clothing and beauty products, even securing a collaboration with fast fashion brand In The Style.
However, people really wanted to see Olivia back on the TV screens, and it didn’t take long before she got her first reality TV series alongside Chris.
Chris and Olivia: Crackin’ On was intended to show the pair navigating their new romance outside of the villa, but instead the episodes were filled with arguments and then their eventual inevitable split. It was a cautionary tale about going too fast with someone you’ve only just met.
While it was an uncomfortable watch at some points, it served its purpose of entertaining and now Olivia was free to be a solo act.
This time she offered her services to The Only Way is Essex, despite living in Manchester. ITV made it work to get Olivia’s magical presence within their show, and she injected some much-needed drama into the programme, which had run past its peak (although, we still love it).
With her star power growing, she left after 16 episodes. Capitalising on her newfound fame, her agent worked hard to get her in multiple shows. At one point, she could have challenged Joey Essex with the sheer volume of screen time she was getting.
Olivia appeared on Celebs Go Dating, Celebrity Karaoke Club, The Games, and I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (for a very short stint due to failing a health test), while also popping up on Lorraine, Tipping Point: Lucky Stars, The Crystal Maze, and The Real Housewives of Cheshire.
It was only natural that she got her own reality show – Olivia Meets Her Match. Documenting the lead-up to her nuptials with Blackburn Rovers midfielder Bradley, this series had a much happier ending than Crackin’ On.
Instead of the finale depicting a heartbreaking breakup, it was their wedding day at the Bulgari Hotel in London’s Knightsbridge.
‘I’m very passionate about reality TV being as real as possible because as a viewer, that’s what I want,’ she previously explained to us.
She has built herself to be in a powerful enough position that she has a seat at the editing table, and just like other titans of the reality world, including the Kardashian sisters, she can decide what does and doesn’t stay in the show.
‘I’ve grafted for years to get to this point. I do have the power to say “Can we lose that?”
‘I might be watching with my hands covering my face and cringing but I’ll try not to exercise that right too often.’
Hosting era
In 2022, Olivia pivoted to documentaries and now uses her voice to tackle subjects she feels need to be explored more.
She has fostered a close working relationship with ITV, working on multiple projects all for the broadcaster. Subsequently, the exclusive and mutually beneficial relationship has allowed Olivia to rarely be out of public consciousness.
‘I’ve remained in the ITV family and they have always really believed in me,’ she proudly told us.
‘There’s been a lot of hard work on my side, and their side, and together we’ve been able to make some really cool stuff and hopefully we’ll continue to do it.’
In Olivia Attwood: Getting Filthy Rich, she dived into the sex industry and even had a speaking-only part in a porn video, and during The Price of Perfection, she delved into the world of cosmetic procedures.
While her unique humour was ever-present, she also showed an empathetic side while speaking to those bravely sharing their stories, and her ability to never judge anyone, even the subjects in Olivia Attwood vs The Trolls, for their decisions earned praise.
Her interview skills are also put to good use on Loose Women, which she appears on pretty much every week.
‘It’s a different thing for me to do a collaborative show with other women. Everything else is on my own,’ she shared.
‘All the women are just fun, super smart, and a lot of them have been in the industry for a long time.’
She has recently added another arm to her brand and founded her own podcast, Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right, where she’s spoken with Mel B, Katie Price, and even her own husband.
Now, in her arguably biggest career moment so far, Olivia will be taking the helm of Bad Boyfriends (Olivia Attwood’s Bad Boyfriends to give it its full name) completing her transition from contestant to presenter.
The premise is simple – a bunch of terrible partners are nominated by their girlfriends to get put through a sort of boyfriend bootcamp to improve their ways.
They are unaware of the true purpose of the show when they rock up in Zante -instead brought into the series under false pretenses, initially believing they are starring in Brotopia – a search for Britain’s biggest lad.
Olivia feels honoured that she has been trusted with fronting the latest reality show.
‘It feels like a dream come true. Coming into this industry via reality television, it feels like a real full circle moment and something I’ve been working really hard towards over the last six or seven years and something I feel like I’m ready for,’ she stated.
‘I’ve been doing the documentaries which has been a great learning curve and now being a part of Loose Women and various other smaller hosting roles, they’ve all been great training tools towards hosting a format of my own.’
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Olivia Attwood’s Bad Boyfriends begins Sunday at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX
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