Love Island 2024 confirms a big surprise in the couple-up as the first episode of the series

Love Island has announced a big surprise pairing for tonight’s opening episode – probably a first for the series.

The new summer series of Love Island starts tonight on ITV. Viewers will be introduced to the Islanders of 2024 as they enter the villa and meet their new housemates.

Traditionally, the opening episode pairs up the boys and girls, which in previous years has been decided by the audience. Tonight, however, the islanders themselves will decide on the pairing – although they don’t know that at the time.

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“Welcome to Love Island. It’s nice to meet you, but I think we should play a little game to get things started,” explains presenter Maya Jama, presenting the twist in the form of a task.

“Boys and girls, I want you to rate each other based on who you think came across as the most boyfriend and girlfriend, all the way down to who gave off the least relationship vibe.”

First, the girls come together to rank the boys in order from most to least likely to be suitable boyfriends. Then the boys give the same verdict as the girls.

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Maya then reveals the key to the candidates: She explains that the girls and boys will team up with the person who occupies the same position on the scale as them.

“That was really interesting,” she says. “I bet you’re wondering how we’re going to bring you together. You did it yourself!”

This is not the only twist to be expected that evening: Maya later returns to the villa and gathers the islanders around the fireplace.

“It’s lovely to see you’ve all settled in but as you know, you’re on Love Island,” she tells the group. “You always have to expect the unexpected.”

As the islanders express their dismay, viewers will likely have to tune in to tomorrow’s episode to find out what fate has in store for them.

Love Island is broadcast weekdays on ITV2 and streamed on ITVX.

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