A helpful guide to your career options after you leave 'Love Island'

Love Island, series 4, has been on for eight years, I think. I’ve been watching this current series for eight whole years, and I can’t imagine my life without it. But then I’m just an insignificant prole, a sofa-bound no-mark of which the wider world is entirely unaware - so how are the soon-to-be-famous glistening hunks and lithe babes going to cope once the show is over?

Eight whole weeks (it was weeks, wasn’t it, whoops) of free holiday, free drink, free sun, free bean-bags and unlimited, bottomless, free refills snogging - where do you go from there? What on this godforsaken planet are they supposed to do next?

Well, I can tell you - you may think it difficult, but they will absolutely and very easily slot into a new career upon leaving the villa. There are many options open to each contestant - regardless of their time spent on the show - and I will duly list them out before you.

As such, if any of the Islanders are reading this, do not fret, for all the advice you need is right here, on this page, straight from the gross fingers and worrying brain of your new careers advisor: me.

1. An Influencer

This is career choice no. 1, obviously. People go on Love Island to become influencers; influencers go on Love Island to become even bigger influencers - step foot on that island and you have an extremely high chance of becoming one. Some will fail, most will not. If you’re lucky, you can turn this into a full-time career in and of itself - simply “have” a large enough following on social media, and the money will come flooding in.

All it takes is a picture of you holding a protein shake, a bottle of vodka, a stick of teeth-whitening paste, a cool new missile-launcher, and each respective company will swiftly hand over a ludicrously large sum. Imagine that, a photo and you’re rich. That stuff that most people do on their Instagram for free, and you’re getting actual, real money for it.

“Thanks so much to @blackanddeckeruk for gifting me this sweet new spirit level. Now I’ll know which surfaces are completely flat! #blessed #dontforgetyourdayones”

Contestant most likely to do it: Well, all of them are gonna have a go, aren’t they? It’s the easiest and most lucrative one. Shame then, that some of the people only lasted about 22 hours on the show, and will soon find their offers drying up. After a year it’s nose-hair trimmers, isn’t it? They’re gonna be promoting nose-hair trimmers. For a tenner.

2. A reality TV show regular

If you are lucky, and possess a “personality”, then other TV shows are going to want to snap you up sharpish. This means, but is not limited to, appearances on Celebrity Dinner Date, Celebrity First Dates, Celebs Go Dating, Celebrity Big Brother, Your Face Or Mine and That One Where They Wank the Pigs Off. It may also mean making the jump to another existing reality TV show as a regular cast member, like Sam Gowland did on Geordie Shore, or Chyna on The Ibiza Weekender. And finally, if you can manage it, the jackpot: your own reality TV show.

These can be about anything - they could follow you as a couple in the cringe-festival that is your relationship after the show (Chris and Olivia: Crackin’ On), they could track your life outside of the villa with your bessie (Chris & Kem – Straight Outta Love Island) or even catch up with you later down the line when you’re getting married or summat (Alex and Olivia Said Yes!). This is the holy motherload, baby, and you’re set for a good few years if you manage to land one.

Oh, and the doctor has also prescribed a regular dose of ‘panel show’ to keep you alive when you feel you may be flagging.

Contestant most likely to do it: It’s Dani and Jack, isn’t it? The two best people on this year’s show will 100% have their own reality TV show, probably called Dani Dyer’s Deadliest Pen Salesman or something. It will be great, obviously, and it will start the day after Love Island finishes and last for a whole year and I will watch every single episode.

3. TV presenter

This is tough, and none of the previous Love Islanders have properly managed it yet. Many have tried, but they all seem to have failed. Kem and Amber had a brief stint on This Morning before giving up and Montana Brown was an MTV announcer for a short while, but her contract was not renewed. It’s a tough world, is TV presenting, and if you don’t click with the viewers or you fluff up your lines or wet yourself on live television, then you’re outta there, buster.

Contestant most likely to do it: Eyal’s gonna try, ain’t he? He’ll do the astrology sections on This Morning. Are there astrology sections on This Morning? There should be astrology sections on This Morning.

4. Actor

Is the ultimate dream to be an actor? It sure is for many of us, and if you are the type of person who wishes to be famous (the type of person to go on Love Island, essentially), then why not be an actor? Why not just bloody be one? It’s weird none of them have done this? Not even cameos in a straight-to-DVD British gangster movie, playing ‘Henchmen no. 6’, or something. Strange.

I mean, Adam Maxted from series 2 is now a pro-wrestler, which is (sorry to break it to you wrestling fans) sort of acting, and Danielle Sellers from last series is “rumoured” to appear in a film next year, but we’re yet to have a proper acting job from anyone. Thankfully, we’ve got:

Contestant most likely to do it: Dani Dyer. She’s already been in films like We Still Kill The Old Way, which everybody has seen, and she’s got a starring role in a movie called Heckle, set for release at Halloween. Dani Dyer will be an actress, this I will stake my entire Pog collection on.

5. Fashion designer

This is “fashion designer” in the very loosest sense of the word. What it really means is “having your own fashion range”. Whether you actually design the pieces is completely up to you - there are people to do that for you if you can’t be arsed, it’s all very easy. Simply wear the clothes and put your name to them, and you’re sorted. 

You could design a big banana outfit - like just a proper massive banana with your head poking out the top - for BooHoo and people would buy it. A pair of jeans that are made out of Play-Doh. Shoes that are upside down hats. People will buy any old shit, and you can rake in their hastily-chucked cash like a cyborg vacuum cleaner. Slam dunk.

Contestant most likely to do it: I reckon Samira’s gonna bang out a line. She was always looking on top form, and the public knew it - she’ll team up with Missguided, pump out a few jumpsuits and make an absolute killing.

6. Model

By virtue of being allowed on Love Island in the first place, you will be very good looking. You will have a beautiful face and a chiselled body - you are the kind of person that other people want to rut with. As such, you will be very suited to a modelling career. Personality - if it was never really explored in the villa - is not a prerequisite for modelling, as most of the time you are static, without sound. Other times you will be in motion, but similarly, without sound.

Of course, when I say “modelling”, I am not talking catwalks here - you will not be the next supermodel - but you will be able to carve a nice little niche out of appearing in BooHoo ads, on the ASOS website or in the windows of Sports Direct. You will ubiquitous and associated with a certain type of high street fashion, but because you’re absolutely peng, you’ll stay employed for a good while. Especially if you get in contact with Samira, who’s just launched her playsuit line, and needs models. Ride those coat-tails, baby!

Contestant most likely to do it: Most, if not all, of them. New Jack will model for someone like Gym King, Megan will do Pretty Little Thing, Adam will only ever appear in swim shorts, and Jack will begin working for Parker.

7. Personal trainer

Much like a model and a Love Island contestant share numerous overlaps, so does the latter and a personal trainer. If you’re on Love Island, you’re in tip-top shape. You’ve got big old arms and a six-pack, huge socking thighs and a chest like something out of whatever it was The Hulk was last in.

You are hench, stacked, buff, laaarrrge. As such, you probably know your way around a gym, and right or wrong, people would probably trust you to tell them what to do in one, too. As such, you - the walking advert for your business - will be able to take on a wealth of thirsty clients and build up a business as swole as your ridiculous back.

Of course, a great deal of your clients will simply be signing up in order to try and shag you, but isn’t that what life is all about? Isn’t that the thing we all strive to do? Isn’t it literally the meaning of life? To shag?

Contestant most likely to do it: Adam was a personal trainer before he went in, but because of how much of an impact he made, he might have to leave it for a bit as he tends to his other commitments. However, someone like Kieran, who was also a PT before he went in, might have to go back to it sooner, seeing as he wasn’t on the show for that long. Still, it’s enough exposure to really ramp up his business in a big way - he’s not going to be searching for clients by torchlight, that’s for sure. Mainly because of that shagging thing I mentioned.

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8. Open a shop

This used to be the sole remit of the TOWIE cast - do a few seasons then open up a “boutique” in Essex. One bloke even opened a deli. Sod it, open a hardware store. A chemist. One of those weird Christmas pop-ups. A shed that only sells cat pelts. You are famous - people will come to your warehouse of nose-hair trimmers.

Contestant most likely to do it: Alexandra? She’ll open a cosmetics shop, one that she will never visit, but will bear her name nonetheless. Either way, she’s getting her own make-up line, isn’t she? She sorted out Demi Rose, for flip’s sake. Those tubes of paste will fly off the shelves straight into the faces of a million young and impressionable faces.

And I dunno maybe Eyal will open a church or something.

9. Open a club

This is much like opening a shop, it’s just a more fun type of shop. You’re still buying things inside it, but they’re “fun” things, like pints. A club is such a money-spinner - a constant stream of punters spending way beyond their means, all because someone relatively famous is in some way associated with it. You would probably have to be one of the more popular contestants for this to work - the winner, preferably - but stick your face on a flyer and the booze-hounds will come a-flocking.

Also, if you open it in Marbella or somewhere, you get a load of free holidays out of it, you can hang around on a beach, do the odd appearance, get free drinks - what a life, eh? Wanna be treated like a proper A-lister? Walk through that there club and you’ll be mobbed to within an inch of your life. Strangled, scratched, trousers ripped off - as I said: WHAT A LIFE, EH?

Contestant most likely to do it: I can imagine Jack doing this, or Adam, but Charlie’s got the cash to open up a swank-palace in Mayfair, ain’t he? It’ll be off-the-charts tacky, but it’ll cater to a very specific crowd - the kind that go clubbing in Leicester Square, basically, but like to think that they aren’t the kind that go clubbing in Leicester Square. You know who you are. Or maybe you don’t? Either way, meet you in Charlie’s.

10. Simply appear at a club

If you don’t want to (or can’t) open your own club, then - did you actually know this - there are other clubs that are already open, that you can go to. Also, they will literally pay you to go to them. You, doing what you have done every weekend for the past six years or so, but instead of leaving the night with less money, you will be leaving with more. Can you actually imagine going on a night out and waking up the next day without a crippling deficit in your bank account? Without the slowly tightening grip of debt wrapping its fingers around your foolish neck? Without crying? CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING A NIGHT OUT AND NOT CRYING THE NEXT MORNING?

All you gotta do is stand on a stage, maybe “oversee” some sort of boat race-type competition, throw a few “#GRAFTING” t-shirts into the audience, hand out some free nose-hair trimmers and then probs have a quick fuck somewhere for afters. Pretty easy, that sounds, right?

That is why Adam from Love Island is embarking on a 61-date (!) nightclub tour of the UK. He is going to 61 clubs and he is getting £300,000 for it. Pick your big wet pants off the floor and let that sink in - three-hundred-thousand pounds of money, he’ll be getting, for doing his weird snapping turtle smile on stage and maybe taking his top off a bit. An amount of British pounds that adds up to one-hundred-thousand of them, times three. It’s enough to make you evaporate.

Contestant most likely to do it: Well, Adam, because he’s already doing it. But nearly all of them will, for this career-option is also briefly open to even those who spent scant time in the villa - get as many appearances in as you can, fresh from the show, just wring as much cash-kebab from that path before you’re forgotten. Lovely bit of surplus paper, that is. Make sure you get over to Ibiza for free too, or at the very least, Benidorm. Live fast, die young.

11. Use your reach for GOOD

When there’s barrels and barrels of sweet, sexy cash to be made, you’d be forgiven for ignoring any issue with even the slightest hint of importance. Genuinely, I forgive you - I certainly wouldn’t be out to help anyone when there are stages in clubs to stand on, when there are bus stop adverts to be in my shorts on, when there are nose-hair trimmers to pose with on Instagram.

Why would I? I went on Love Island to stuff my big pockets with currency and have a manic two years in which I come extremely close to death on numerous occasions. I ain’t helping anyone less fortunate than me.

Still, some people think that having a large following and a voice to which some people may listen, is a great way to spread some actual, real-life goodness. To make a change. Which is exactly what Camilla and Jamie did/are doing. They’ve properly jumped on the charity train and have been commendably travelling about the world helping fight the good fight - they fill their Instas with charity call-to-action posts, they did a charity walk to save lives in Syria and even travelled to Greece to work in a refugee camp. Props to them, but you know, not for me - those nose-hair trimmers aren’t going to sell themselves.

Contestant most likely to do it: Eyal? I don’t really think anyone else gives a shit.

12. Pol…itics?

Nah.

Contestant most likely to do it: Nah

13. Wander back to obscurity

If you worked as a plumber before going on Love Island, and were all set for your new career in holding things, but you only lasted a single day in the villa before getting booted off, then it might be a good idea to go back to being a plumber. Maybe fame isn’t for you. Many previous contestants are now no longer famous - you may have even walked past them in the street, entirely oblivious that one of the ones from Casa Amor just entered your personal space.

They’re an estate agent now. They do nails in a nail salon in Brentwood. Love Island was merely a fun blip on their radar - an interesting deviation from the norm which meant they were able to go to three film premieres, but must now be content with life as it was before. No harm in that - they got a free holiday out of it, and that’s more than most of us can say.

Contestant most likely to do it: Well, most of the Casa Amor lot, int it? You’ve already forgotten their names, and they are now on the phone to their old boss and apologising for telling them to “Stick ya dumb shite job up your poop chute, I’m famous now”. IT WAS A JOKE.

14. Become… an enigma

What is it… that… you do? What… do… you…d…o? Like, you’re doing alright, I think, you seem to be living quite a fun life and all that - you live in a big house, for example, but what actually… is it… really… that… you do? 

Nobody knows what you do. Nobody. You are somehow still famous, but what you do - well, that’s a… mystery. How you spend your time… unknown. Job? Not sure… about that. I’ve asked people, and you know what? They are also… confused. They don’t know what you do, either. It’s not nose-hair trimmers, that’s for sure. Please… what you do… nobody knows.

WHAT… DO… YOU… DO… YOU… FUCKING… GIT?

Contestant most likely to do it: Dunno, I reckon somehow Hayley will do alright, even though I will have zero clue as to the source of her cashflow. Good luck to her in her enigmatic endeavours.

So there you go - if you’re a ex-contestant fresh from the sunny vistas of Spain, you’ve got all the requisite advice right above there. Read it, drink it in and then go with your gut. Your life has most likely been completely changed as a result of Love Island, and there is no turning back. Your previous life is but a memory, it’s dust in the wind - your future is bright and the only way is up. YOUR NOSE WILL BE SO HAIRLESS OH MY GOD.

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(Images: ITV/Getty)