Love Island 2021: One of new contestants has rubbed shoulders with royals

The first contestant announced for Love Island said she wanted to do the reality TV show as the civil servant does not want to be the “only one in the group chat that is single anymore!”.

Sharon Gaffka, 25, from Oxford, is an operations lead for the Department for Transport, and joins the new crop of contestants for the ITV2 series when it airs on June 28.

This year’s series sees Laura Whitmore return as host and it will be the first time the ITV programme has aired since last year’s summer series was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Asked why she wanted to take part in Love Island, the beauty queen said: “It’s been a bit of a running joke between my friendship group for a while that I should apply, probably because I’m the most outrageous one out of the group.

“But also because of Covid and the lockdown, I’m the only single one in my friendship group. They’re either married or planning on getting married. I don’t want to be the only one in the group chat that is single anymore!”

Talking about her job, she explained she has been a civil servant since the age of 18.

She added: “I’ve worked in lots of different departments. I’ve been doing Brexit policy for the last year, I did a stint during the coronavirus pandemic in the Department of Health so I was helping deliver testing kits and managing the operations. It’s been an intense year!”

Gaffka said she tends to date people taller than herself and added: “I’m quite an intellectual person so I want someone who can kind of match that.”

The second contestant announced, 24-year-old Aaron Francis from London, is a luxury events host.

Talking about his job, including ‘working at royal weddings’, Francis said: “Yeah, Eugenie and Beatrice’s over the summer. I hosted and chatted. It was nice and intimate. Everyone’s chill. In my job you meet a lot of famous people… unless you’re Beyonce, I’m not really interested.”

He said he was looking for someone “passionate about what they are doing”.

He explained: “I don’t like when people are doing a job just to make money and then they kind of just live for the weekend. Especially because I work on the weekends.”

The new series starts on June 28 at 9pm and airs on ITV2 and the ITV Hub.