Real tea – the Love Island lot get up to some wild s**t after together after appearing on the show. They run in the same influencer circles, get invited to the same events and parties, have the same PRs... you get the idea.
They're like that cliquey group at school that never managed to break away and meet other people post uni and beyond and whose kids are now being forced to become besties. We love that these Islanders are all so close and it's always a joy running into them en masse, but we know they get up to s**t they'd rather acquaintances like heatworld don't know about – Gossip Girl stuff like b*tching and hooking up with each other's former flings and exes.
All allegedly, blah, blah, blah.
As such, we're sometimes kept at arm's length (fair - we are heat magazine), which means we don't see everything they do coming, nor do we see some IRL Love Island recouplings coming; like, for example, the apparent recoupling of winter Love Island OG Ron Hall with a Casa Amor girl we swear we never saw him talk to once on camera.
Yep, the Ron Hall who fell head over heels with Lana Jenkins and sort of fell off the influencer map after their split.
It seems he went a bit radio silent on us as he was pulling none other than Casa girl Lydia Karakyriakou – the very same Lydia who Tom Clare ditched for Samie Elishi – for some secret chats behind closed doors.
And according to some of his Love Island boys, the relationship has at least reached the 'soft launch' stage.
In a collection of snaps from a recent Virgin Voyages cruise (these are like glamorous, floating waiting rooms for reality stars looking for their next gig, FYI) Ron included a cosy snap of himself and Lydia together in the photo dump.
We wouldn't think much of this normally (as we said, Islanders like to work and play together), but some of the comments have led us to believe there's something deep here.
Ron and Lydia's winter Love Island co-star, and winner of the series, Kai Fagan commented, 'Omg finally a soft launch, so happy you and @lydiakarax have gone official 🙌👏🔥.'
Then Ron's bestie Luca Bish added, 'Happy for you bro 🤍.'
Naturally, the comments and Reddit have lost it. Now, either this is complete p*ss take or it's legit, and we kind of hope it's the latter as we actually ship Ron and Lydia as a couple. We've interviewed them both and they are absolute babes.
They're Love Island celebs though, so in reality, we won't know for certain until we get a rock hard launch of sorts.
If it is a hoax, at least that means they're back in the running for All Stars...
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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 💅.