Exclusive: Love Island’s Jess White exposes Joey Essex romance that was ‘shut down’

The TOWIE icon has been grafting the girls in the Love Island 2024 villa

Jess White and Joey Essex

by Nathan Katnoria |
Published on

It’s fair to say that her Love Island journey was a turbulent one, but Jess White finally found the connection she was looking for when she met Hugo Godfroy in Casa Amor and they’re still exploring things in the outside world despite being dumped from the island.

Before Casa, Jess was coupled up with the likes of Ronnie Vint, Sean Stone and Trey Norman, but it turns out that she almost ended up in another couple before she “shut that down”.

Prepare yourselves for a curveball, because Jess is talking about none other than Joey Essex.

Joey Essex
According to Jess, Joey almost coupled up with her ©ITV Pictures

Chatting exclusively to heat, Jess explained, “I don’t know if this was shown, but there was numerous conversations that me and Joey had and at one point, he was thinking about saying that I was up there as somebody that he’d pick.

“And I was like, ‘No, please don’t pick me, Joey. I don’t want you to pick me. This is like a brother sister thing, not a romantic thing.”

Sorry, what? Just imagine how different things would've been if Jess and Joey had ended up in a couple.

Jessica Spencer, Emma Milton, Jess White, Blade Siddiqi, Ayo Odukoya and Hugo Godfroy
Jess was dumped from the villa alongside Hugo, Blade and Emma ©ITV Pictures

Spaking about her time in the villa, Jess continued, “Being single in the villa, it is really hard. Earlier on it was fine because obviously everyone was just kind of exploring a connection and can I just put it out there, I was also exploring connections I didn’t want to explore.

“You know, people are like, ‘Nobody wanted her, da da da’. There was people in there that wanted me, but I just didn’t want them, so there was a bit of a difference.

Jess White and Hugo Godfroy kissing
Jess sparked a connection with Hugo in Casa Amor ©ITV Pictures

“I explored a connection with Sean. I could have carried that on if I wanted to, but I just had to be open with him and say I wasn’t really feeling it. Obviously, Konnor [Ewudzi]. I don’t know what you saw of Konnor, but there was conversations had with Konnor, but again I kind of had to shut that down, just say for me it was more of a friendship thing.”

WATCH Jess White speaks out on Joey Essex romance

Nathan Katnoria is heat and Closer online’s senior digital writer. He became obsessed with Love Island when Malin Andersson came back to confront Terry Walsh in series two and hasn’t looked back since. When he’s not interviewing former Islanders, Nathan is scrolling through their Instagram feeds for relationship updates and piping hot tea.

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