Love Island viewers ‘shocked’ as Jessica Shears and Mike Thalassitis are voted off

Viewers were left shocked when a public vote saw Love Island's Jessica Shears and Mike Thalassitis dumped from the show.

A twist saw contestants from the three least popular couples face being booted out of the dating competition by their fellow islanders.

Fans of the show were in disbelief that Dom and Jess, who had been together from almost the very start of the show, would be broken up.

Some felt the duo's time had been cut short and that other contestants were more deserving of a plane ticket home to the UK:

While others felt sorry for Jess’ partner Dom who broke down in tears as she departed.

Twitter users were less surprised to see Love Island latecomer Mike leave the show, but as the 24-year-old had previously hinted he fancied Jess, some speculated that the two evicted Islanders might get together.

The surprise dumping took place after viewers were asked to vote for their favourite couples.

Earlier in the week presenter Caroline Flack had teased that the least popular duos would be at risk of being kicked off the island.

In Wednesday’s show the host returned to the villa to break the news that at least one of the islanders would be leaving the show.

Flack explained that the couples who had come bottom in the vote would be up for eviction, with the safe couples deciding which of the contestants should stay or go.

It was then revealed that the lowest scoring duos were Olivia and Mike, Chris and Chloe, and Jess and Dom, while Jonny and Camilla, Sam and Montana, Kem and Amber and Marcel and Gabby were all safe.

The boys from the safe couples were told that they would have select the girl they felt should leave the villa out of Olivia, Chloe and Jess.

After an agonising discussion the boys decided that Jess should be the one to go.

Camilla, Montana, Amber and Gabby were tasked with the difficult decision of which boy should be kicked off the show.

Eventually they plumped for Mike, the villa’s most recent arrival, with Montana saying:

“It’s been a really hard decision and we do want to see any of you leave […] some people have had longer opportunities to settle into the group and some of you have been here for a while, we do feel we have loyalties to people who have been here longer, so we’ve decided to send home Mike.”

While Dom was devastated by seeing Jess sent home, the 24-year-old took it in her stride commenting: “I feel slightly disappointed, I would have liked to have been in there longer. But it has been an amazing experience, and I have learnt a lot about myself. I went in there looking for love and came out of there with a best friend and an amazing guy, so it feels like in many ways I’ve won whether I stayed until the end or not.”

Mike was less magnanimous saying he was “gutted” to be going, adding: I feel like I had more to give and my time was cut a lot shorter than I thought it would be […] I had a short time in there but it was at least it was very eventful.”

Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2.