If you’re not stalking this year’s Love Island finalists on Instagram and TikTok, we genuinely want to know what else you’re doing with your summer.
No, really, because we hit a rather sad reality wall this morning when we suddenly realised that we classify maniacally following Islanders on socials as a hobby.
To be fair to us, though – and, yes, we do realise we’re having an argument with ourselves here – we do invite a lot of said Islanders to appear on our YouTube series Under the Duvet and LOTS of them turn up IN PERSON. So that’s almost us validating our life choices.
Saying that, we do get the odd one or two who turn us down or even ghost us. But, tbf that’s just part of what makes them so iconic. If anything, we want to be friends with them more.
Anyway, we’ll swiftly move on to the point of this article before our sanity is dragged into question.
Let's talk Antigoni Buxton's reunion afterparty and its LACK of Love Island finalists.
Why were the Love Island finalists absent from Antigoni's reunion afterparty?
For an EXTRA special of Under the Duvet we invited Love Island 2022 icons Dami and Indiyah, Adam and Paige and Andrew on his lonesome, as it was Queen Tasha’s birthday (we won’t take it personally). This motley crew of legends had been out the night before celebrating, so naturally, the topic of unofficial reunions popped up (because absolutely no one wants to talk about that snorefest of an official reunion).
Sidenote, they all looked miraculously fresh-faced considering we were filming in the morning and they were doing tequila shots a few hours earlier. The curse of being a fit and famous Islander, we suppose.
Hosts Harriet Rose and Love Island 2019 star Chris Taylor asked if Tasha’s birthday dinner was the first time the OG squad had rekindled away from the villa. Adam revealed that it was, but that him and Paige had hung out with lots of other 2022 Islanders at Antigoni’s now legendary reunion afterparty last week.
Adam revealed that the post-reunion bash was a larger thing and less intimate, adding that none of the finalists were in attendance. We're glad Adam is redeeming himself all these years later by doing our job for us.
"We just went back to our hotel"
So what's the tea, gang? Had the finalists been invited? Had the finalists ignored their invites? Is this some iconic Islander VS meh to vibin’ Islander beef, we're not yet privy to?
Well, we can’t speak for Tasha, Gemma or Luca, as they weren’t on the show (ahem), and Andrew stayed characteristically chill throughout the conversation steer, but Dami and Luca had a valid reason for missing the afterparty and were happy to spill the tea with us.
Dami exclaimed, “We were too tired.”
If Indiyah hadn’t of elaborated here we would've made a Drag Race shade rattle joke right about now.
Indiyah diffused our imaginations by adding, “It was my sister’s birthday that day. So we just went back to our hotel, celebrated and like, chilled.”
For everyone who has ever made up an excuse not to do something with friends on the spot, there’s a fresh reminder as to how it sounds EVERY time.
To be fair, Love Island finalists are busy little bees, especially in the first few weeks following the final.
Which actually now makes us think there are pros to getting booted out of Love Island early; you’re free to go hang out in Antigoni’s mansion with all her celebrity pals on a Sunday night.