I’ve changed my mind: Amber is the best Islander in the villa

In the first few days of Love Island, all anyone could talk about was the stupid love triangle between Tommy, Lucie, and Joe. But now we know Joe is manipulative, Tommy’s a moron, and Lucie loves attention, we need a reason other than two Rihannas and a Beyoncé to turn our heads away.

Enter Amber. In her first appearance on the show, she told Callum he was really old, deflected his terrible chat, and was generally understood to be rude, sulky, and immature.

But over the last few days people have been waking up to the fact that Amber is a breath of fresh air in a villa full of people who are too afraid to say anything REAL.

She’s had to deal with Tommy and Joe seemingly defaulting to her after Lucie pied them off, binned off Callum in favour of a friendship couple with Anton, and proven that she’s arguably got the best chat in the villa.

It is high time we realised: Amber is the straight-talking, sassy heart of Love Island 2019, and we have to stan. Here’s why:

She refused to be the second best option for Tommy and Joe

We’ve spoken before about the way in which Love Island boys’ preference for white blondes over women of colour says a lot about Western beauty standards, and it would appear Amber is aware of this.

Twice now, Amber has tried her luck with a guy only for him to fall at Lucie's feet instead. In both cases, Tommy and Joe have retreated to Amber when their graft with Lucie has gone stale, and both times Amber has told them where they can stick it.

Of course, Love Island is the sort of show where you kind of have to do this – since if you don’t crack on, you get kicked out. But Tommy and Joe made it clear every step of the way that Amber was second choice, and she was having none of it.

When Joe felt the need to apologise for subjecting Amber to a whole 90 seconds of flirting, all she said was: "You're sorry for flirting with me?" Before nonchalantly flipping her hair. Legend.

Her savaging of Callum's sunglasses was actually hilarious, and also bang on the money

Okay maybe it was a bit peak when she called Callum old, and her now-deleted admission that she “doesn’t like black guys” was a little on the problematic side – that much is fair. But telling Callum that he can’t actually pull off every type of sunglasses was absolutely fair craic. Turns out she had good instincts, and Callum has vanished from the public consciousness faster than any Islander before him. Also his sunglasses were crap.

She spotted Tommy's piss poor game a mile off and didn't give it the time of day

Case in point: When Tommy asked her to help him stand up she didn’t even give it a second thought before walking away.

Not missing a trick, she said: "Tommy hasn't spoken to me, which is fine. Then Lucie tells Tommy that she wants to sort things out with Joe, and then Tommy makes a beeline for me saying 'I wanna get to know you' and he expects me to be happy? I know what you're doing. I'm not daft."

Would you catch her promising to crawl to the moon and back for anyone? Absolutely fucking not.

She kept Anton in the villa because she knows it would be dead without him

It didn’t come as much of a shock that Amber ditched the guy whose name I forgot one paragraph ago, but her decision to opt for a friendship couple with Anton came out of left field.

Obviously it takes a problematic fave to recognise a problematic fave. Amber knows Anton is a caricature of every Geordie Shore wannabe PT who’s ever entered the villa, but she also knows that’s why Anton needs to stay.

Hopefully she continues her crusade of weeding out the wet flannels of the villa until Love Island resembles its former self – Amy and Curtis should be next.

Amber is BIG season one energy, which is what we all desperately need

Amber feels like she's been beamed in from an earlier series of Love Island, back when people like Kady used to start fights for the bant. While the current crop of Islanders are constantly watching what they say, forever conscious of future brand deals they may end up losing, Amber says what she thinks. It's great.

As an example: We have no way of knowing if, when she heard Tommy utter immortal words "if two Rihannas and a Beyoncé walked in here my head wouldn't turn," Lucie didn't think: "This is a bit much mate, we met literally less than an hour ago."

What we do know is Lucie said she thought it was a sweet thing to say, even if Tommy jumped ship to be with new Islander Molly-Mae the very next day. Amber, on the other hand, would have probably told Tommy to pull the other one… probably.

Look, anyone who's best mates with Yewande is obviously a good egg at heart

Yewande is objectively the most popular girl in the villa. We all know this. You will not see a single tweet about her which doesn't say she should be protected at all costs, or that she needs more screen time. Did you see her getting sent out on that date? The applause from the other Islanders was probably the most sincere display of emotion any of them have ever shown.

Amber being friends with Yewande shows that she has good judgement. Aside from that, their conversation actually sounded like two mates would talk in real life, and not once did either of them wonder aloud whether they should get with Tyson Fury’s brother or a man who sells sandwiches out of a van.

Honestly, the show would be so much duller without her

I'm sorry but I could not pick out a single jokes thing Amy, Lucie or Anna has done over the last six episodes – even at gun point. Amber has to stay, and long may her partnership with Anton continue.

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