Love Island: Who is bombshell contestant Ellie? Meet the self-proclaimed villa ‘liability’

Love Island is back on our screens with a brand new series and host.

The dating show returns on Monday (16 January) night with the second-ever run filmed in South Africa with new presenter Maya Jama.

The initial line-up kicking things off in the villa includes the show’s very first partially sighted islander, a contestant with vitiligo, and a contestant who once worked as Emma Watson’s body double.

An islander who joined a little later in the show is Ellie Spence, who entered as a bombshell contestant.

Whether or not Ellie appeared in the opening episode was up to the public, who were asked to vote on whether she or footballer Tom Spence should enter the villa first.

Here’s everything you need to know about Ellie…

Promising to “shake things up” in the villa, 25-year-old Ellie hails from Norwich, who works as a business development executive at a law firm.

Ellie says she wants to find her husband in the villa after three years of being single and a dating “roster” that’s run “pretty dry” and led her to “about 500” bad dates.

“I’m single because I fall in love really quick, but I fall out of it just as quickly,” she says. “I could literally fall in love with a chair and then a week later be like, ‘Oh wait, no, that’s a chair…’ I fall in love quickly because I build up a character of someone in my head and then they breathe in the wrong direction and I’m like, ‘Next!’”

As for the dreaded “ick”? “Overconfident guys and men that think they can get any girl when they think they are so fit and a 10/10 when in actual fact they are none of the above. I like confidence but not arrogance.”

Ellie says she’s “super caring” while also being “a little bit of a liability” and will bring “drama, fun and a bit of unpredictability” to the villa.

“I’m fun, caring, smart and know how to have a good time. I feel like I’m the whole package; I’m flirty, forward and very confident,” she says.

Ellie has a scar on her leg that came from a serious accident when she was drunk.

“When I was drunk I climbed over the gates of my friend’s house, fell and almost lost my leg,” she says.

“I was in hospital for two weeks but they stitched me back up. It left me with a big scar on my leg but I’m so blasé about it, if I’m in a bikini you can’t not see it.”

Ellie’s Instagram page is @elliespennie. However, you’ll have to wait until she leaves the villa to see her social media posting due to a change in this series of Love Island.

Unlike previous years, when the islanders’ friends and family have manned their profiles, the winter 2023 contestants have been asked by ITV to make their accounts “dormant” for the duration of their time in the villa.

ITV introduced this measure to help lessen the “adverse effects of social media” on the contestants.

Love Island airs nightly (excluding Saturdays) at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.