She's an icon, she's a legend and she is the moment - we're of course talking about Matilda Draper who has dated two famous celebs since walking into the villa so we've had a deep dive into her relationships.
Let's be honest, last year's Love Island really was a f**cking delight, wasn't it? Thanks to the cozzy livs, the vast majority of us couldn't escape to somewhere hot and sunny, so we lived vicariously through the likes of series 11's Samantha Kenny, Uma Jammeh and Mimii Ngulube on the telly and what summer loving they gave us. The escapism of it all.
Aside from Joey Essex - we get he was looking for a full house on his reality telly bingo card, but we could've done without a bona fide celeb on Love Island 2024. No shade to Joey, he was just a constant reminder that this was a structured reality show and it kind of took us out of it a bit. Just us? Celebrity Big Brother, I'm A Celeb and our dreams, sure, but not Love Island.
Anyway, one civilian queen who helped see us through the summer was icon of icons Matilda.
From the second she strutted into the villa shouting 'Ronnie boy' at Ronnie Vint, we knew we had a legendary hun on our hands. And we were totally right.
While at first Matilda tasked Sean Stone, Omar Nyame and Wil Anderson with cooking her a three-course meal as part of a dinner date, she chose to get to know Sean deeper.
Despite him, erm, getting to know both Diamanté Laiva and Ruby Dale in Casa Amor and Matilda showing mild interest in Jess White's bae Hugo Godfroy, in the end the watermelon slice stayed loyal to the candy man - and they breezed straight to the final.
Sadly, her and Sean decided to call it quits IRL just a few weeks later and, frankly, from the moment we got wind of that break-up we started manifesting Matilda for an All Stars 2025 return.
Her return to the villa didn't happen though because as it turns out, she was shacked up with a new reality star and honestly, we ship this couple so hard we've ceased manifestation.
In December 2024, Matilda was spotted out and about with none other than TOWIE legend Roman Hackett - and would they not have the most beautiful babies?
Late last year heat heard form a handful of sources (we have flying monkeys everywhere - still not over Wicked, btw) that the new couple had been seen out and about on the scene looking VERY cosy and an Instagram Story even soft launched the new relationship.
Matilda shared a cosy AF black and white snap of her and a mystery man in a tight embrace and we could instantly tell that said mystery man is Roman.
How? Baby dolls, we're heat we've uploaded enough pictures of Roman to recognise his tattoos and those tattoos are his.
Fast forward to April 2025 and not only have Matilda and Roman gone on to hard launch their relationship on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube (obsessed) but the dolly - a nickname given by her besties Grace Jackson and Harriett Blackmore - has joined the cast of TOWIE.
Matilda and Roman and totally loved up and to make things even more adorbs, they've gone on double dates with Jessica Spencer and her boyfriend Braydon who is Roman's cousin.
Cuuuute.
WATCH: Love Island 2024's Jess on her clashes with Joey and Sean
Ben Pulsford is a digital writer for Bauer Media, writing for both Closer online and heatworld. When he's not getting paid to gossip about Big Brother, Love Island and The Real Housewives of Cheshire, he's storming the London LGBTQ+ scene as drag queen, Beary Poppins. Both Ben and Beary are awaiting an invite to join The Real Housewives of Cheshire for series 18. The budget's not there, but the drama is 💅.