Yahoo News 'Love Island' contestant Elma Pazar reveals she lied about her age to get on the show
This year’s Love Island contestants range from 20-years-old to 29-years-old but one former Islander has confessed to lying about her age in order to bag a place in the villa.
Elma Pazar, an eyelash technician from Essex, was dumped last week when the public voted for Anton Danyluk - the guy she was coupled-up with - to stay in the competition instead of her. Now she’s revealed that she’s not 23, like she told the other contestants, but three years older.
Read more: Caroline Flack fears being on a reality show would ruin her chances of finding love
"I lied about my age on Love Island. I tell everyone I'm 23, it's a real issue,” she told Kem Cetinay and Arielle Free on the Love Island Morning After podcast.
"I'm 26 but now everyone knows it because they said they couldn't lie for me."
Interestingly, the average age of contestants this year is 24, and Pazar wouldn’t have been the oldest in the villa.
Former air stewardess Amy Hart is 26 and firefighter Michael Griffiths is 27-years-old. Model Arabella Chi, pharmacist Anna Vakili and ring girl Maura Higgins are all 28, while model Tom Walker - who is currently coupled-up with the latter - is 29.
Despite sparking up a potential romance with Danyluk in the villa, Pazar previously admitted to wanting to couple-up with sandwich maker Joe Garratt - but was put off by the fact that he seemed smitten with professional surfer Lucie Donlan.
"Having gotten to know them all and living with them all, I think Joe,” she told The Sun Online, when asked who she’d wished she could have ‘cracked on with.’
"He's a southerner like me and he's really nice. He has a certain banter, and you get on with some people more than others and I think I really got on with him.”
Read more: 'Love Island' star Joe Garratt refuses to apologise for 'gaslighting' Lucie Donlan
But even though she left the villa at the same time as Garratt, she insisted they spent their first day in the real world apart, as he was kept in a safehouse following the backlash towards him and his “abusive” behaviour to Donlan.
“I always had Lucie’s best interests at heart,” he explained to the publication. “I promise you I would do everything and anything to help her because she had a hard time in there and didn’t get on with the girls.”
Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2.
