Love Island is set to return to our screens next week for another summer of flirtatious daybed chat, messy slow motion challenges and hopefully a dramatic Casa Amor stint to stir the pot.
ITV bosses have confirmed that the eighth series of the hit ITV2 show will be premiering on Monday, June 6 – just days away.
The trailer for the 2022 edition was teased during a recent episode of Britain's Got Talent and promised a steamy summer of love, while poking fun at rival shows Too Hot To Handle and Love Is Blind.
But the look and format of the hit show has changed dramatically since the rebooted version aired in 2015, with Love Island villa rules now stricter than ever before.
This year, the villa itself has even changed but during the ITV2 show's first few seasons, viewers were shocked by the never-ending on-screen sex as well as excessive drinking and smoking.
Nowadays, canny contestants decide not to go all the way with their partners on the show, particularly in the wake of dramatic Love Island scenes in 2016, when Zara Holland lost her title as Miss GB after she slept with Alex Bowen in the hideaway.
While the show still produces much-loved, long-lasting couples, such as Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury, it’s changed a lot over the years.
Here are all the ways Love Island looks different from when it first aired in 2015.
Boys picked first
It may be a distant memory to most, but in the original series of Love Island, late host Caroline Flack asked the boys which girl they wanted to couple up with – instead of the other way around.
The power dynamic was swapped in the second series, so the girls chose the boys – allowing Cara De La Hoyde to pick her now-husband Nathan Massey – and has remained the same ever since.
Smoking ban
In the early seasons of the show, countless Islanders would have a gossip about the ongoing drama in the villa while puffing away on a cigarette in the designated villa smoking area
It was even revealed that contestants who smoked were given 20 cigarettes per day by show producers.
Craig Lawson, who briefly appeared on the show, said in 2017: “The show normally provides 20 fags a day per person – so five people equates to 100 cigarettes. Fags are on mass supply...
“But if you get through your daily allowance then you won’t be given anymore – no one should be smoking more than 20 a day. That’s a lot. Some people smoke quite excessively in the villa...
“I’m a non-smoker but I would still get a supply. You get so bored when you’re in there – that’s why you see so many people smoking. There’s only so much you can talk about your life.”
However, in 2018, ITV bosses decided to ban smoking on screen after numerous complaints from viewers.
Head of ITV2, Paul Mortimer, told the Radio Times that “more than 50 percent of complaints about the show were about people smoking.”
While the cigarettes have been banished from ITV screens, they’re still available in the villa, as producers have installed a designated smoking area, with only one Islander permitted to smoke at any given time.
Sex rules
Many of the ITV show’s most jaw-dropping scenes came from the one-on-one moments in the mass-shared bedroom.
Jon Clark and Hannah Elizabeth were the first Love Island couple to have sex on the show – and they weren’t quiet about it.
In 2017, fans were left shocked as Tyla and Mike, Montana and Alex, and winners Kem and Amber got down and dirty under the sheets.
There was even controversy on the show when Islanders Terry Walsh and Emma-Jane Woodhams had sex in front of their fellow contestants.
Rumour has it that Islanders are not allowed to masturbate or be nude around the villa, as it counts as public space.
ITV producers are still keen to make sure that if there is sex, it’s safe, with plenty of condoms all over the villa.
Marcel Somerville from 2017's series revealed that all contestants have to have STI tests before entering the villa.
He said: “There’ll always be members of the cast who are more outgoing than others, and there’ll be people who don’t mind doing it [sex]. It’s definitely down to the cast members, if you do want to do it then by all means do it...
“The show provides the necessary protection, so just be safe. The show does do strict testing beforehand just to make sure that everyone going on there is clean.”
New villa
This year, ITV has gone bigger, better and perhaps even returned to a spice of the earlier seasons of the show with the new Love Island villa.
The Love Island villa of recent years has been in Sant Llorenc des Cardassar, but the first two series were in a different part of Mallorca, Ses Salines, in a privately owned villa kitted out to replicate a rustic French property.
Producers added the villa quirks we have come to know and love: gym, open-air kitchen, a jacuzzi and the infamous fire-pit for re-couplings.
The original villa also included the largest private pool in the Balearics and there was no Casa Amor in sight until the third series.
The new inside look at this year’s villa reveals that the bedrooms have been modelled to look like they did in the old seasons, with beds arranged so they are facing one another.
A brand new fire pit has been built for the season, complete with colourful cactus and plenty of seating room for all the drama to unfold.
Fake weddings
The Love Island finale at present is usually a sappy and slightly cringe-inducing affair, as the couples read teary vows to one another.
But in the first series, the finalists got ‘married’ in a mock wedding ceremony which saw the girls go shopping for genuine wedding dresses and bouquets of flowers.
Jon Clarke took the proceedings so seriously, he even proposed to Hannah Elizabeth – but the couple then split up shortly after the show ended.
Drinking limits
On other popular reality shows, the main drama often comes from drunken behaviour.
Unfortunately for viewers waiting for drunken drama, ITV have placed strict rules on how much the contestants can drink.
Islanders are now only allowed to have two pre-poured glasses per night, while group parties mean they can share two bottles of prosecco.
But this might not have always been the case, with some fights – such as the mammoth series two bust up between Kady McDermott and Malia Arkian – fuelled by alcohol.
Mike Boateng told The Sun: “I know some of the original series were allowed more drinks on tap.
“But I think, as the seasons went on, and safeguarding became more efficient, especially for our season, we were limited to just two drinks a night.”
A Love Island spokesperson previously explained: “We provide our Islanders with all of the necessary precautionary measures and all alcohol consumption is strictly monitored.”
