In our humble opinion, there is nothing more entertaining than a reality show crossover. Elma Pazar was a Love Island bombshell back in 2019 long before she graced the screens of TOWIE, and Zara McDermott was an Islander on Love Island 2018 before she made the jump to Made in Chelsea a year later.
It turns out a Love Island 2024 Islander was originally going to be Married at First Sight UK and the news has us reeling.
Runners up Ciaran Davies and Nicole Samuel were a strong couple during their series, and for a while it even looked like they could nab the £50k prize. That is, until Mimii Ngulube and Josh Oyinsan won our hearts and the majority of the public vote.
However, before he came second place in Love Island, it turns out that Ciaran was approached by the producers of MAFS UK when he was just 18 years old.
Ciaran revealed the fact while appearing on the Not My Bagg podcast alongside girlfriend, Nicole.
He told the Baggs brothers, "Before this show I got asked to go on Married at First Sight. I got asked for the first UK one, I was 18. I told my mum about it, I said, ‘Mum, guess what, I’ve been asked to go on a TV show.’
"She said, ‘Is it Love Island?’ I said, ‘No, Married At First Sight, I’m going to be married now, Mum’. She lost it."
While we are huge MAFS fans, seeing Ciaran walk down the aisle at 18 might have been a bit much even for us. We have Ciaran’s mum to thank for knowing that he was destined for Love Island. However, he did drop that L bomb awfully fast in the villa, so he probably would have been the perfect MAFS contestant. Well done, casting producers.
Similarly, Nicole revealed that she too was approached for a different show before she went on Love Island. She said, "I got asked to go on Celebs Go Dating for this season, so I think if I wasn’t going to go on Love Island, maybe Celebs Go Dating."
Can you imagine Love Island 2024 without the iconic "Who's Emma!?" line? We don't even want to consider it.
Although we’re happy both Nicole and Ciaran chose Love Island and found each other in the process, we would still have loved to see Nicole on a date with MIC’s posh boy Tristan Phipps, would he have been able to 'crack on' with our Welsh queen? We’ll never know.
WATCH Ciaran and Nicole have already moved in together
Sarah O'Byrne has been writing about MAFS for heat and Closer since May 2023, but this is just to fill the time before her application for the show gets accepted.