In recent seasons, Love Island Australia has gone down the pre-recorded route, resulting in more drama and hilarious puns from the narrator. However, some fans have been left scratching their heads over how the Love Island winners are picked if the show was already pre-packaged.
This year’s winning islander has now spilled the tea on how things go down in the Villa before we see the finished product.
Hold up! This article contains spoilers for Love Island Australia 2024. You’ve been warned.
For folks who’ve yet to feast their eyes on the last three seasons of Love Island Australia, the show has been reformatted to a pre-recorded show rather than a live feed.
While you’d think this decision would kill audience participation, viewers who’ve been hand-picked by producers prior to the season and are labelled “superfans” can still contribute to the challenges and recoupling ceremonies that wreak havoc on the Villa.
Audiences — even those who haven’t been picked to be a superfan — are given the opportunity to participate in the season’s grand finale, where they can vote for their favourite couple to win.
With the show being pre-recorded, some punters are a tad bit confused with the logistics of how they determine the winner and how their victory dances are recorded if it’s all a pre-packaged game.
How is the Love Island Australia 2024 grand finale recorded?
In an interview with PEDESTRIAN.TV, Love Island Australia 2024 winner Em — who won alongside her ex-islander boo Mercedes — revealed that they were made to record three alternate endings and that the winner would be determined by audience votes that take place on grand final night.
The three alternative endings are extremely similar to how RuPaul Drag Race films its finales when they crown their Drag Queen of the Season.
“We filmed three alternative endings as if each couple has won so then we don’t know,” Em spilled.
“We found out [the winner] with the rest of Australia.”
Despite that golden piece of gossip, Em added that the islanders are unsure how the voting works, specifically with the deadline which was 9.32pm on Monday night.
“Voting closed [on Monday night] at 9.32 which is a very oddly, specific time. I would love to know the details behind that,” Em added.
Alongside that piece of behind-the-scenes tea, Em also revealed that she and Mercedes were not asked if they wanted to split the cash prize, which is a question that is usually thrown at the winning couple.
To give you a quick TL;DR, while islanders are given the opportunity to find love in the Villa, if they win the season they also bag a $50,000 cash prize.
After being crowned winners, host Sophie Monk then asks the couple if they want to split it in half or if one of them wants to be cheeky and take all the money for themselves.
However, this year the question was nixed altogether. During our chat, Em revealed that Monk didn’t ask the golden question and believes it could be because islanders were offered $20K to leave the Villa earlier in the season.
“I think because we all had the chance to take the $20K or leave a couple of nights previously … because we had that opportunity — I mean I can’t speak on why production didn’t include it — but yeah, we definitely didn’t shoot it and it wasn’t left out. I would’ve taken all the money though if I had the chance,” Em shared.
At the time of writing, no one in the whole Love Island universe has taken the cash prize for themselves.
Honestly, after being cooped up in a Villa in Majorca with a bunch of hotties with tempers, I would’ve taken all the moolah (including the $20K) and left.
It’s a win-win situation, IMO!
Stream all episodes of Love Island Australia 2024 on 9Now.
