Molly-Mae and Tommy Fury: Bursting the bubble on reality TV relationships

Former Love Islanders Olivia and Alex Bowen, who were runners-up in the second series of the ITV2 show, explain to the BBC what being in a high-pressured and highly controlled environment was really like.

“It was surreal that we were in this bubble where everything was heightened and everything happens so fast,” former Love Islander Olivia Bowen tells the BBC.

The artificial setting can create a distorted sense of intimacy where relationships that might take months in the real world are fast-tracked.

“It was an intense environment but that helped us realise what we meant to each other quite quickly,” Olivia says, with Alex adding that it was like “being thrown in the deep end but it worked for us”.

Olivia and Alex, who have a son, say that “of course some people are there for fame”, but they are “proof that genuine relationships can come from these shows”.

Over the past decade, reality dating shows have soared in popularity – there’s everything from Married at First Sight where couples meet for the first time at the altar to Love is Blind where dating takes place blindly in pods, or simply Naked Attraction, where you really do see it all.

But, the premise of putting ordinary people into extraordinary environments remains the same.