[Headie]

Youtube video

Thanks to BBQuest for making me aware of this! Just having a listen now and it's quite interesting actually. Only 15 mins in and probably will be one of those things I gradually listen to in small doses over a few days.

He said that the producers did a guinea pig run/dry run with a completely different set of cast members (including a different set of twins) before the actual islanders for the real series moved in. Jess was only supposed to be in the guinea pig run but the producers found her so entertaining and interesting that they pulled her out of it a few days into the run and put her into lockdown as they wanted to make her an official islander instead. She ended up replacing Naomi in the original starting line-up, who had already been put into lockdown, so Naomi was in lockdown for weeks and weeks

[Headie]

They're not allowed to discuss any mutual friends or connections they have on the outside world with each other, otherwise they get yelled at by production on the tannoy

[Headie]

Oh wow, so before Malin was even cast for Season 2, she was an extra in Chris's intro video for Season 1 (the ones where they like film staged interactions - his was him on a plane eyeing up Malin as she walked past) and they both knew each other from 2 years before Love Island when they were on Take Me Out together. And after Malin finished filming for Chris's intro vid, she messaged him telling him who some of the other cast members were gonna be because she was filming for those ones too So before he went in he already knew that Luis and the Italian twins were gonna be on the cast, so he was able to look them up on their socials etc and see who they were