Connor and Cass from Love Island USA meet up after the show

Cass Laudano may have selected Rob Rausch above Connor Newsum in the Love Island USA Villa, but the two abandoned islanders “started talking” after returning home from Fiji.

“She came out and I said, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ We texted each other and maybe made some life plans,” Connor said. We weekly during an exclusive interview on Wednesday, July 3. “We really hit it off. We had a lot in common. We had a few conversations that were really easy, and we work in the same professional field. … We just had a lot of similar interests, the love of animals. I think everyone saw that weird conversation about fishing that we had when I was making her cheese sandwich. Just random stuff like that. She’s really easy to talk to, beautiful, and just fun to be around.”

Connor made the revelation when asked if Cass was the second girl he and close friend Rob had together in the villa after they both went out Leah KatebFans watched as Connor’s bond with Leah (on her part) quickly fell apart without him realizing that she no longer had feelings for him.

“I still wonder, ‘How much of this was legitimate?’ That’s a good question, honestly,” Connor said, as Us inquired. “I feel like there was mutual interest in the beginning. When I first came to the villa, Leah and I were talking and we expressed mutual interest in each other. And then nothing came of it. I got quite close to Rob and I saw how close Rob and Leah were and then when that was over, Leah and I approached each other one day.”

Connor now believes that he is “not the guy (Leah) is into.”

“She told me a lot of types of men she’s dated in the past, and I just thought, ‘I don’t think any of them are right for me,'” he continued, later revealing that Miguel Harichi is perhaps the closest to what they were expecting. “As time went on, it became a little less legitimate on my part (I think). I think I put blinders on and just wanted to be happy and find a good connection and thought, ‘Hey, I’m talking to someone who I have a lot in common with and who I can have nice conversations with.'”

Connor said his fellow islanders tried to make him understand that Leah might not be as into him as he was into her, but he tried to ignore those signals: “She told me she was happy and I thought, ‘Who am I not to listen to the person I’m with?'”

Related: The most dramatic Casa Amor moments from “Love Island”

Ben Symons/Peacock Casa Amor is the ultimate relationship test on Love Island. The dating show first became a must-watch on summer television in the UK in 2015, and four years later, in 2019, a spinoff premiered in the USA. “It feels like a Sims game. When I came in, I thought: ‘Wow, this is a computer game.’ … (…)

Connor described his decision to get involved with Leah during the dance challenge as his “last ditch effort” with his island mate.

“When I came into this game, I thought, ‘This is perfect. I feel like they designed this game for me, I know exactly what I’m going to do here. I’m going to stay.’ I knew at that point that there was a 90 percent chance that she wasn’t standing there (explaining that she wants to be exclusive),” he explained. “But I figured that the 10 percent chance that she was still standing there and I was going to walk away would rob me of sleep. That would make me feel awful. I thought, ‘She’s probably going to walk away, but I’m going to get the answer I need and I’m going to deal with it.’ One thing that did annoy me, though, was that I then lost face-to-face contact with Cass when she came in because I was stuck on the balcony eating sour candy with Cordell.”

Returning to the fact that he and Rob were interested in the same women, Connor revealed that there was almost a moment between Rob and his first connection, JaNa Craigtoo. “Rob and I just seemed to be attracted to the same type of girl. Rob even said, ‘JaNa is beautiful, JaNa is beautiful,'” Connor said. “I thought, ‘Dude, we can’t do that again.’ It made me chuckle, you know, Rob and I are close. We communicate pretty openly.”

Related: “Love Island USA” status check: Which couples are still together?

They got a text message – and found love in the Love Island USA villa. The popular British dating show came across the pond in 2019 and followed a group of American sex bombs looking for the one in a luxurious tropical villa. In season 1, eventual winners Elizabeth Weber and Zac Mirabelli had a connection (…)

Connor was kicked out of the villa when Cass decided to get together with Rob after a few days of getting to know the boys. “She had a difficult decision. She cried when she made the decision,” Connor said. “She barely knew Rob. She barely knew me.”

While Cass was dumped shortly afterwards, Rob is currently alone with the other men in Casa Amor. Before he went to Casa, however, Rob’s friendship with I’m Liv Hawkins.

“This is something Rob and I had actually talked about right before I left. I think Liv really caught Rob’s eye when Liv was supporting Rob in that whole fight with Leah,” Connor said. “I mean, Liv is beautiful, right? So it’s not a huge surprise that he’s attracted to her. I think Rob and I were both thinking the whole time, ‘Liv is kind of creepy, but in a really sexy way.'”

So where is the Andrea Carmona — the bombshell who caused Rob to have a nervous breakdown when the female islanders decided to eliminate her after her four-day whirlwind romance with him? According to Connor, it’s likely that Rob and Andrea will be the next couple to get back together outside of the show.

“The night Cass was trying to decide between Rob and me, Rob said, ‘Hey, whatever happens, it’s all good. I think I’ll just take the first flight to Miami’ – that’s where Andrea lives. I think he has all the plans to see Andrea when he gets out,” Connor said. “That felt very real, even though it was four days, time passes a little differently in the villa. I think he just had the mindset of, ‘If I leave, there’s a chance it won’t work out with Andrea outside and then I might regret leaving, but if I stay, I can still see her outside in a few weeks.’ But you never know what’s going to happen in there, with Liv, for example, or with Casa. So we’ll see. I mean, Rob had feelings for Leah pretty quickly, had feelings for Andrea pretty quickly. But I know he really, really liked Andrea and she likes him. I’ve been texting all the people who are out now and she’s definitely very interested in seeing Rob as well.”

New episodes of Love Island USA airs six days a week at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Peacock.