This 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 this year, so we lived vicariously through the likes of 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's 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 Draper.
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. Her infectious personality and romance with Sean saw her breeze 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, because if there's one person we know could help us through the sh*t stain that is January it's Queen Matilda.
Sadly, that's looking highly unlikely now, as rumours have been rumouring that Matilda is shacked up with a new reality star, and, honestly, we ship this couple so hard we've ceased manifestation.
Matilda has been spotted out and about with none other than TOWIE legend Roman Hackett - and would they not have the most beautiful babies? Good God. heat has heard form a handful of sources (we have flying monkeys everywhere - still not over Wicked, btw) that the new couple have been seen out and about on the scene looking VERY cosy and a new Instagram story post has pretty much soft launched the new relationship.
Earlier this week, Matilda shared a cosy AF black and white snap of her and a mystery man in a tight embrace and we can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that said mystery man is Roman.
How? Baby dolls, we're heat and our sister is Closer online – we've uploaded enough pictures of Roman to recognise his tattoos and those tattoos are his.
Also, a couple of our sources also spotted the pair looking all couply at London's Winter Wonderland recently and trust us, you're not trying to hide your relationship if you're laying on the PDA at Winter Wonderland - it's a zoo of influencers, journalists and television personalities all caged under giant festive spotlights.
In conclusion, we seriously approve.
And now we're manifesting a Matilda TOWIE cameo in 2025.
Matilda entered the Love Island 2024 villa as a bombshell and tasked Sean, 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 and the pair made it to the final, despite Sean, erm, getting to know both Diamanté Laiva and Ruby Dale in Casa Amor.
Matilda also showed mild interest in Jess White's bae Hugo Godfroy, but in the end the watermelon slice stayed loyal to the candy man - at least until August 2024 when they split.
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 💅.