HER VILLA SECRETS
THE HIDDEN DOOR
“Keep an eye on the door in the kitchen, it’s a two-way larder. They lock it most of the time, but it’s also a sneaky exit door where producers would ‘pull you’ if they wanted to speak to you. If you see someone coming out of ‘the larder’, there’s probably drama ahead!”
FEATHERED FRIENDS
The massive wooden front door is left open all night. We’d get random peacocks strolling in – it was beautiful, but so weird. We’d find them hanging out in the hallway and would have to shoo them out.
SEGREGATED LUNCHES
The cameramen have a break at lunch so you have some downtime – but you’re not allowed to talk about anything interesting. If you’re in a new couple, or arguing with somebody, they keep you separate because they always want things to progress in front of the camera.
BOOZE LIMITS
We only ever had two pre-poured wines in the evening. If there was a party, we might get one or two bottles of prosecco between us, but you’d be lucky to get half a glass of that! The producers would also watch if you ever tried to sip somebody else’s!
SUPERVISED DAYS OFF
We didn’t really get a lot of down days, maybe four half-days in eight weeks. They’d usually split up the boys and girls and one group would go to the holding villa where we’d take off our mics and laze around the pool with our chaperones. We had amazing takeaways on those days!
NIGHT-TIME VISITORS
They change your microphone pack – which sits on the side of your bed – in the middle of the night. Sometimes you’d wake up and someone would be changing your mic at 5am, but we were on first-name terms with most of the crew.