Justice for Grace! Why is Love Island the only show on telly you aren’t allowed to want to win?

The final of Love Island All Stars is here, and if you think it’s come round harmoniously then you mustn’t have bothered to tune in last night. If you didn’t, you made a grave error – it was juicy as all hell for once. In the chaotic episode, Islanders who’d been dumped from Love Island All Stars this year returned to stir the pot, and nobody did more so than Olivia Hawkins. Olivia Hawkins was the catalyst for revealing texts, apparently sent by Grace, where she said she wants to win. From the reaction of everyone in the villa, including Grace herself, you’d have thought she sent some texts saying she wants all puppies executed. This is not a new thing – but why is the biggest cardinal sin of Love Island Grace saying she wants to win All Stars, and why the hell is it the only show with a cash prize where you’re not allowed to want to walk out the villa with the prize?

For context, Liv Hawkins returned to the villa and said Luca and Grace shouldn’t be safe because of a “thing I’ve seen on the outside”. She then explained: “So I’ve seen text messages of Grace just saying to someone that she’ll do whatever it takes to win the show.” Obviously this was a big bombshell bit of info, and everyone reeled from it. Liv also refused to say who the texts were shown to her by, but others in the villa such as Samie vouched she too had seen them.

via TikTok

Most Read

Revealed: The apparent texts Grace was sending around before Love Island All Stars

Right, what did Grace *actually* say in those Love Island screenshots and are they real?

Tasha finally breaks her silence on Andrew split and hints this is the really sad reason

The texts in question are, in my opinion, tame. One says “I will win this” and the other says “I’ll do anything I can to win this time gurl. In it to win it babe.” To me these messages, if they’re legit, just read as vaguely enthusiastic fighting talk. The way Olivia Hawkins revealed this info it made out like these texts were the height of scheming and plotting, as if Grace was going in with insincere intent. These are just normal, conversational messages. At least in my eyes.

Grace said she deffo didn’t say that because saying it would be the least thing in her personality possible.

But let’s take all that context out of the equation: So what if Grace DOES want to win? Why on Love Island, a show with a cash prize and eliminations and a contest of public and villa favour – is it not okay to say you want to win? If you wanted to win I’m A Celeb nobody would care. Strictly, Dancing on Ice, Big Brother. All completely acceptable to want to win, and rightly so.

Yet, Love Island – winning is a dirty word. The simplest answer is that people in this show are insistent they have gone on for love, constantly parroting they’re there for “the right reasons”. The implication being, if you want to win then you aren’t on there to find meaningful connections.

May I just remind everyone how you win Love Island? You do so by being in a couple with someone you really like, and often the winners are the strongest who’ve been together for the longest time in the villa. To win, you have to get through public votes and win favour with them as well as the villa Islanders you live with. Sometimes they have the power to send you home. To be in there to win means you’re looking for something proper – or at least something proper enough that you can see it through to the end.

So why is that an issue that Grace says she wants to win Love Island All Stars when the texts are mildly spicy at best? Normalise people entering shows and wanting to win the whole thing – AKA the reason they walked in the villa in the first place.

For all the latest Love Island news and gossip, like The Holy Church of Love Island on Facebook.