Your first kiss, the first "I love you" and your first fight are all formative parts of a relationship that most couples experience privately. But when all your firsts are broadcast to millions of people across the country, is your relationship doomed to fail before it's even started? On Wednesday Molly-Mae Hague announced her split from fiancé Tommy Fury, five years after they met on reality show Love Island. The couple were seen as a rare success story that made even the most hardened of critics question whether it was actually possible to find true love on reality TV.
Now, former contestants are shedding a light on what life is really like after the cameras stop rolling - and reality TV relationship experts are sharing the secrets behind a successful coupling up. 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 Al.