Awkward! This 2026 girl auditioned for Love Island seven years ago but got turned down

It has now been revealed that one of the girls on Love Island 2026 auditioned for the show seven years ago but wasn’t chosen by the producers.

Charleen Murphy told EVOKE she signed up for the show in 2019 to go on the first winter series in South Africa in early 2020, before she blew up as an influencer.

“I got through two rounds. There are quite a few. I was flown to England for the auditions, and I just wasn’t chosen,” she said in 2021. They told her she was one of the last 30 girls in the running to be a bombshell, but she just wasn’t picked in the end.

“It is exactly how you would imagine it is, they ask you what you would do in these situations in the villa, who you would go for, what your type is, etc. They have a really set idea in their mind each year who they want.”

She thinks part of the reason she didn’t get on is that people were comparing her to Molly-Mae, who went on the show the previous year. “I am compared to Molly Mae [Hague] a lot, and that was the year after her that I auditioned, so I think that might have hindered me,” she said.

Credit: ITV

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If she was successful, she would’ve been in the villa with Paige Turley and Finley Tapp, Siânnise Fudge and Luke Trotman, Demi Jones and Luke Mabbott and Jess Gale and Ched Uzor.

Speaking about the audition process on her podcast Hold My Drink, Charleen said you’re surrounded by all these potential girls and it’s “so daunting”. She recalled: “You’re told to dress like you’re going on a night out. You fill out a form, you go in one by one, but it’s really… I’ve never been around so many gorgeous girls in my whole entire life. It’s really daunting.

“What I like about it… is that there’s never any sob stories on it. Which is good because I had auditioned for X Factor in the past and they literally out straight ask you: “Have you ever been through anything hard in your life? They’re not even beating around the bush, they’re not waiting for you to say it, they’re like, ‘What is your story?'”

Charleen said she’s actually glad she didn’t get it that year because she was only 20 and doesn’t think she would have been “mentally ready for it”. Of course she’d say that after getting declined.

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Featured image credit: ITV