She’s one of the most popular Love Island contestants of all time but 2019 winner Amber Gill has revealed her journey on the ITV2 dating show could have been very different.
The 22 year old was one of series five’s OG girls alongside Amy Hart, Anna Vakili, Yewande Biala and Lucie Donlan but show bosses originally planned for Amber to enter the villa as a bombshell before changing her contract just days before launch day.
Amber spilled the tea on the backstage secret while chatting to Fleur East on The Reality of Reality TV podcast, admitting that she wasn’t keen on being a surprise arrival.
She said, “When I got called in the UK, they were, like, oh, we want you to be a bombshell…
“I was like, no, I don’t want to do that. They were like, no, no, it’s great, being a bombshell’s great. You’ll have such an impact on the show.
“Me personally, I’m not the type to steal someone’s man or be really confident and going in and be like, I like him. That’s just not me. But my Auntie was like, look, this opportunity isn’t going to come around often. Just go.”
CHECK OUT Love Island winners - where are they now?
Love Island winners - where are they now slider
2005 - Celebrity Love Island - Jayne Middlemiss
TV presenter and model Jayne Middlemiss was the first person to win Celebrity Love Island, alongside Fran Cosgrave. Nothing happened between the pair when they left the villa, with Jayne continuing with work in TV, including shows such as Celebrity Masterchef and Pointless. She's now a radio presenter!
2005 - Celebrity Love Island - Fran Cosgrave
Fran Cosgrave, who is the former Westlife bodyguard, went on to land his own spin-off TV show alongside Calum Best and Paul Danan, before releasing his autobiography in 2006. Fran dated Atomic Kitten singer Natasha Hamilton, with the pair welcoming a son together, but they've since split.
2006 - Celebrity Love Island - Calum Best
Despite being on the show in 2005, Calum Best re-entered the Celebrity Love Island villa in 2006, this time winning the show alongside Geordie girl Bianca Gascoigne.
2006 - Celebrity Love Island - Calum Best
Since leaving the villa in 2006, Calum has kept himself in the spotlight, appearing on a number of other shows such as Celebrity Big Brother and Famously Single. In 2018 it was being reported that Calum was dating Hannah Murrell, despite the model being 16 years younger than the 38-year-old.
2006 - Celebrity Love Island - Bianca Gascoigne
Entering the Celebrity Love Island villa as a glamour model in 2006, Bianca won the show alongside Calum Best.
2006 - Celebrity Love Island - Bianca Gascoigne
Although nothing materialised romantically between Bianca and Calum outside of the show, the model went on to achieve success, appearing on shows such as Gladiators, Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Coach Trip.She even auditioned for The X Factor in 2012!
2015 - Love Island: Jess Hayes and Max Morley
When Love Island returned to our TV screens in 2015, with host Caroline Flack, Jess Hayes and Max Morley were crowned the winners, taking home a massive £50,000 each.Just 40 days after leaving the villa, the pair split up, leaving viewers of the show heartbroken.
2015 - Love Island: Jess Hayes
Despite splitting from Max, a few years later Jess found true happiness with her boyfriend Dan Lawry. The pair welcomed their first child together in 2019, a baby boy called Presley James Lawry.
2015 - Love Island: Max Morley
Max has kept himself relatively out of the spotlight since he won the show, but in recent months he's been dating Love Island 2018 star Laura Anderson.
2016 - Love Island: Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey
After coupling up on Day One of Love Island 2016, it was love at first sight for Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey, who went on to beat Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen in the series two final.
2016 - Love Island: Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey
Despite splitting for a short period, Cara and Nathan rekindled their romance after discovering Cara was expecting the couple's first baby. After Cara gave birth to baby Freddie, Nathan then proposed to his girl back in the Love Island villa, with the pair getting married in 2019. A true Love Island fairytale!
2017 - Love Island: Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies
It didn't take long for Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies to couple up on Love Island series three, with the pair going on to win the show ahead of Chris Hughes and Olivia Attwood.Despite this, the pair ended their romance just before Christmas in 2017, but they have remained friends!
2017 - Love Island: Kem Cetinay
He's a single boy, but that hasn't stopped Kem going on to achieve great things. As well as landing a record deal with his Love Island BFF Chris Hughes (and a TV show to follow), Kem appeared on Dancing On Ice and now he's joined This Morning as their showbiz reporter. In 2019 he was also unveiled as Primark's first ever male ambassador.
2017 - Love Island: Amber Davies
Despite being romantically linked with the likes of Chris Clark and Liam Payne, Amber has remained single since her split from Kem.Pursuing her dream of being on stage, Amber landed her dream role in Dolly Parton's West End musical 9 To 5 alongside the likes of Louise Redknapp, and she's received amazing reviews.
2018 - Love Island: Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer
The nation fell in love with Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham when they coupled up and won Love Island in 2018. Despite high hopes for the couple, Dani and Jack announced they'd split up in April 2019.
2018 - Love Island: Dani Dyer
Just weeks after her split from Jack, Dani started dating her ex-boyfriend Sammy Kimmence, and the pair look super loved-up on social media. As well as this, the reality star has reportedly made more than £1 million since she left the villa, with various clothing deals, Instagram posts and her own eyelash product.
2018 - Love Island: Jack Fincham
After his split from Dani, Jack joined the cast of series seven of Celebs Go Dating, in an attempt to find his perfect girl. Jack has also teamed up with brands like McDonald's and Protein World, and his debut clothing line is due out later in 2019.
2019 - Love Island: Amber Gill and Greg O'Shea
After getting her heart broken by Michael Griffiths, Amber Gill was swept off her feet when Irish hunk Greg O'Shea entered the villa with just two weeks to go! Despite only knowing each other for 12 days, Greg and Amber were crowned winners of the 2019 series, beating Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae for the Love Island crown.
2019 - Love Island: Amber Gill
Although Amber and Greg appeared to leave the villa on good terms vowing to stay together and split the cash prize, their relationship didn't last with their split announced just five weeks after they left the show.In the time since Amber has gone on to have a successful career as a model and influencer and has a whopping 2.6M followers on Instagram.
2019 - Love Island: Greg O'Shea
Since leaving the show greg has continued to pursue his successful sporting career and has seen lots of success. He even competed in last years Olympic Games (WOW).
2020 - Love Island: Paige Turley and Finn Tapp
Paige Turley and Finn Tapp won the first (and potentially only) series of Love Island to take place in South Africa. They beat favourites Siânnise Fudge and Luke Trotman and left the show on strong form, deciding to split the £50,000 with Luke announcing he wanted to spend his winnings on a home for him and Paige (awww).
2020 - Love Island: Paige Turley and Finn Tapp
Paige and Finn have been together ever since and by all accounts seem to be going strong. We guess love is real...
2021 - Love Island: Millie Court and Liam Reardon
Millie Court and Liam Reardon hit it off from the get go but went through a rough patch following Casa Amor. However Liam managed to win Millie around and they won the seventh season.
2021 - Love Island: Millie Court and Liam Reardon
They left the show loved up and have since moved in together. While there has been rumours floating around that they might have split, Millie has shut down the speculation.
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Explaining how the plans changed, Amber continued, “So, I went and then halfway through the lockdown in Spain, the execs all come in unannounced to my villa and are like, right, we’re going to change your contract around a little bit… we want you to go in as an original.
“Looking back now, I would have been the worst bombshell in history because I would have walked in and be like, no, I don’t like any of these guys.”
WATCH Amber tells us which A-LISTER slid into her DMs 😱 as we unlock her and Anna’s phones 📱💥
After entering the villa on day one, Amber made it all the way to the final and was crowned champion alongside Greg O’Shea but it wasn’t meant to be and they split just five weeks later amid claims he dumped her by text.
Greg revealed the real reason they broke up earlier this year, admitting that he “couldn’t give Amber what she wants and needs”.
He told Goss.ie, “She's class and she's got everything going for her. But the issue was, when I came home I stuck myself into training.
"I could have tried harder but that would have made her unhappy. I couldn't give her what she wants and needs. People kind of got the wrong story, they just saw 'Greg breaks up with Amber over text'. There was so much more to it.”