Fair play to those panto villain Love Island producers – they've cranked everything up a notch for All Stars, especially when it comes to the challenges.
Long gone are the days of the playful, sexy, slow-mo, daytime Love Island challenges, our All Stars have been subject to military-style interrogation in their challenges night after night; and all designed (we assume) to ensure our superstar Islanders are feeling as uncomfortable as humanly possible on camera. It's giving unhinged Big Brother and we respect the level up, but we're a bit evil that way.
So, is it any surprise that recently dumped All Star Joe Garratt lifted the lid on how 'tense' af the villa challenges make things amongst the Islanders?
Something we've seen first hand in the last few days, tbf – that podium challenge OOFT.
Joe (who we've thought about sensually feeding a Strepsil to more than once this week) recently joined our Harriet Rose to record an episode of heat's Under the Duvet podcast and when asked about 'tense' moments in the villa that viewers might've missed, he stressed that the challenges really do turn Islanders, well, feral.
Joe told Harriet, "I felt the tense moments as soon as a game or challenge took place. It's very, very civil and friendly until we get the text and a game is announced, and all of a sudden it starts to build and everyone just knows something's going to kick off."
When asked if a specific challenge came to mine, he said, "On the first challenge, I sat there and thought, 'This is going to be fine. There's literally no issue, everyone is so cool right now.' Within literally ten minutes, issues, the drama, the comments, evil looks."
He continued, "I noticed from the kissing challenge it was, like, who people were choosing to kiss, and the reasons. I remember the first challenge, Josh [Ritchie] kissed Georgia Steel on the cheek – I think it was something to do with followers. And it literally erupted in a split second, because obviously that's a pretty heavy claim to make that someone's just there for clout."
Bless Joe, his All Stars journey was somewhat premature; he entered the villa as a bombshell on day 22, had a quick smooch with Arabella Chi (who is all of us on Valentine's week, let's be honest) and then was sent packing by his fellow Islanders three days later.
Luckily for you lot, being sent home by his friends has seemingly got Joe feeling loose-lipped this week. In addition to spilling the tea on the tense All Stars challenges, he also told heatworld the truth about 'snakey' Tom Clare, what Callum Jones and Molly Smith are really like in the villa and spilled the tea on the infamous heart rate challenge.
For more Love Island goss from the latest dumped Islanders, make sure you listen to heat's Under the Duvet.