Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, the perfect reality-TV star the world has ever seen AND a complete sweetie pie.
Photograph: ITV/Shutterstock
Very like Love Island U.Ok. contestant Davide Sanclimenti, as this season of the present progressed, I fell regularly extra in love with Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu. To be clear, I used to be an Ekin supporter from the start. Her first phrases to her co-bombshell had been an encouraging “Don’t fear, I’ve received you woman,” making it instantly obvious that she was going to deliver the drama, pleasure, and pizzazz that the season had been sorely missing. The spark between Ekin-Su and the Love Island cameras was immediate, her banter standing out from the same old reality-show fodder. There was no “My sort on paper,” no “Are all of your eggs in Gemma’s basket?” As an alternative, a typical Ekin-Su remark goes one thing like “You’ve received the colour of, like, the ocean. Blue. Virtually like you’ll be able to swim in it,” as she stated in reference to a fellow contestant’s eye colour. Even probably the most mundane praise, coming from Ekin, is made hilariously poetic — which is a succinct abstract of her time on Love Island general.
Ekin-Su and Davide simply received the eighth and most-watched season of Love Island, and far of that record-breaking viewership, in addition to their genuinely rom-com-esque romance, could be attributed to Ekin-Su’s balls-to-the wall, extraordinarily Leo strategy to being a actuality star — not an influencer. As a result of she didn’t spend her time within the villa rigorously curating her Instagram marketability, she might truly have enjoyable — and have a messy, actual romance with Davide. That’s proper, I’m speaking lovers to enemies to lovers, child. The present has by no means seen something prefer it, and after two dry and, frankly, boring seasons in a row, they wanted this.
On Love Island, 5 males and 5 ladies are despatched to stay in a villa, the place they’re instructed to “couple up.” Virtually instantly after this pairing off, producers start sending in “bombshells” — single contestants whose purpose is to decide on a lover, thus stealing them from their authentic companion and leaving them single. Each week, there’s a “recoupling.” Being single normally means you turn out to be susceptible to elimination. The purpose is, in fact, to fall in love (and take residence a $50,000 prize).
Not less than, it was. The early seasons of Love Island — earlier than it had a big and dependable viewership and earlier than Instagram fame was the anticipated profession path for actuality stars — had been extra emotional. The attract of starring on actuality TV has at all times been wrapped up in celeb, however nowadays most contestants brazenly admit they didn’t are available in with the expectation of discovering love. As an alternative, they enter the villa with excessive hopes for model offers or, in the event that they’re actually fortunate, presenting gigs or competing on Dancing on Ice. The longer you keep on the island, the upper you’ll be able to anticipate your follower depend — and potential earnings — to be whenever you come out.
Ekin-Su doesn’t flatten herself to widen her attraction to audiences. It’s much more apparent, now that she’s out of the villa, that she had minimal IG profession aspirations moving into — she and Davide each are endearingly dangerous at social media (test Ekin’s IG Story and also you’re prone to discover millennial pauses, the comedian sans font, and 2012-style selfie angles).
I can pinpoint the precise second Ekin-Su grew to become, for me, the realest contestant Love Island has ever seen. It was episode 27, Unseen Bits 4 (Unseen Bits, for the uninitiated, air on Saturdays, when there’s no new episode, and reveal the “enjoyable” clips from the week). This was the week that Charlie, the luxury blond man of season eight (each season has one, and each season he’s eradicated earlier than he has even had an opportunity to completely unpack), selected to couple up with Ekin-Su and evidently quickly regretted it.
On this clip, taken from their post-recoupling chat, Ekin is clearly (a) not that into Charlie and (b) in a foolish, goofy temper. So when he says, “We haven’t even progressed but to a kiss,” my woman Ekin-Su does not kiss that man. As an alternative, she terrifies him beneath the guise of flirting. First, she asks him if he’d be keen to attend 5 years to kiss her (in fact he wouldn’t), tells him he reminds her of the kid from House Alone after which does an impression of Voldemort to seal the deal. Charlie is left practically speechless, besides to say “Cease” and “You’re being very bizarre, Ekin-Su.”
Very bizarre for Charlie, however very, very, very relatable for me and each theater child (or different number of high-school dork) watching at residence. In actual fact, in all the episodes of actuality TV I’ve watched — which is loads, sadly — I’ve by no means witnessed a second so relatable, so very actual. “SHE’S A FUCKING PERSON!” is what I consider I squealed at my laptop computer display screen the primary time I watched it. Who amongst us has not, upon reaching the exhaustion stage I’m certain she was experiencing, began to behave “very bizarre,” as Charlie so eloquently put it?
Ekin-Su doesn’t solely reveal an entertaining character, a aptitude for dramatics, and an extremely lovely visage. These qualities make her a superb reality-TV contestant, however they’re not essentially distinctive to her. What units Ekin-Su aside and makes her a once-in-a-generation star is exactly what made Charlie name her a weirdo. She’s sensible and inventive and will simply as simply have turn out to be a Love Island producer as an alternative of a contestant. As many have identified, she did a lot of the producers’ work for them this season, single-handedly creating plotlines or suggesting a recreation the second issues began to get boring. She was by no means merciless or a bully, not like a few of the different solid members from her season — she was constantly named by different bombshells as being one of many first to say hey or make others really feel welcome (although she isn’t excellent — she famously lied to Davide about her time spent on the terrace with Jay, leading to probably the most iconic and oft-quoted line of the whole sequence).
Who would have thought that Ekin-Su and Davide would find yourself being probably the most visibly obsessed-with-each-other couple this present has ever seen? Now that she has fallen in love, received 64 p.c of the general public vote, and signed the largest model deal in Love Island historical past, I would like extra for Ekin-Su than 1,000,000 Instagram followers and a number of fast-fashion campaigns — and fortunately, it seems to be like my desires are already beginning to come true. She and Davide simply introduced that, an concept many on Twitter pitched, they’ll be filming a two-week highway journey by Italy and Turkey, consuming and cooking and (most likely) arguing. This can be a promising begin to the stardom Ekin deserves. I simply know she could possibly be the Oprah of the U.Ok. Are you able to think about a daytime discuss present known as Earfuls With Ekin? I’ve pitches, individuals! ITV2 execs, get in contact. I need to stay in a world by which no person says “Ekin-who?” ever once more.
