During the audition process for Love Island, the producers ask potential contestants to draw their ideal partner. Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, who won the latest season, along with her boyfriend Davide Sanclimenti, tells me what she drew. “I didn’t draw someone with a six-pack,” she says. “I just drew a stick man. I put stuff which was not based on the looks – which is really weird because I’ve ended up with someone who cares about his appearance. I put: cultured, family-oriented, loyal, confident, not cocky. Someone who works out and prioritises that; someone strong, my age.” (She’s 28, as is Sanclimenti.) “The producers said: ‘That’s really mature, because most people come in here saying, “I want a man who’s 5ft 10, big willy, someone who can carry me, tall, dark and handsome.” Really basic.’”
We are sitting in her PR firm’s office in Covent Garden, London, and she looks ready for anything – a club, the gym, a red carpet maybe – except perhaps a normal Wednesday morning. It’s not that she’s especially made up or even dressed up: bra top, leggings, cardigan. Rather, it’s the peculiar Love Island cocktail of perfection and enhancement; innate gorgeousness plumped with fillers so that all its stars, Cülcüloğlu in particular, look like humans who have been put through a filter, the Instagram version of real life. On screen, she’s very bombshell: big hair, big lips, pneumatic. In real life, she looks wider-eyed, more Disney princess.
