Back when the Love Island line-up was revealed at the end of May, it came to light that Ronnie Vint was close pals with Love Island 2017 legend Olivia Attwood.
If, somehow, you weren’t aware, Ronnie is friends with Olivia’s husband Bradley Dack and was one of the best men at their wedding – and it turns out this helped him get his place as a Love Island 2024 OG.
Ronnie joined Olivia on the latest episode of her podcast So Wrong It’s Right, which is back for a second series, and they revealed just how their connection helped him get scouted by Love Island producers.
If you’re an Olivia fan then you’ll know that her wedding preparations and the big day itself were all caught on camera on her reality series Olivia Marries Her Match, which means that Ronnie’s role as best man was seen on the show.
Love Island execs were also in attendance at Liv’s wedding and she revealed on her podcast that they set their sights on Ronnie after he gave his speech.
“You said ‘no, no, no, I’m not going to audition’ and then at Brad and I’s wedding, Ronnie was one of the best men and he did a speech and I had a lot of Love Island execs at the wedding because obviously it’s a big part of my life,” Olivia explained.
“And when you came off the stage from doing one of your speeches, one of the producers said to me, ‘he’s going on Love Island, he just has to. It’s a non-negotiable now’.”
She continued, “I think that opened up your thoughts. One of them grabbed you, didn’t they and said, ‘will you come in?’, because you still had to go in and do an audition and do all the medical stuff that everyone else has to do. He didn’t get any shortcuts, but they’d just seen another layer to your personality.”
Ronnie then revealed that after years of turning down Love Island, filming for Olivia Marries Her Match gave him a taste for being in front of the camera.
“It weren’t until your show, obviously I did a lot of filming didn’t I? Even sorting that out and doing it with Brad and yourself, it was like I actually enjoyed it,” he explained.
“Obviously, it was for you, which was obviously the main thing, but I thought ‘I’d do something else now’.”
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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.