Em Miguel Leigh and Mercedes Knox won Love Island Australia 2024, by a viewer vote but fans found out they split shortly after the finale was filmed. Now that the Islanders know how much Australia was rooting for them, would they be open to rekindling their relationship?
During an exclusive interview with Chattr, Em explained in detail why her relationship with Mercedes broke down and revealed whether she’d be willing to get back together with him.
Why did Love Island’s Mercedes and Em break up?
Em told Chattr that she and Mercedes had next to no time together after the finale, and her doubts started to creep in once they were apart.
“I think [the Love Island] experience is so wild, and you don’t have any perspective at all. You’re so close to everything. I will say when I was in that experience, I thought I’d met my person,” she explained.
“After I got home, I regained a perspective that you’re just not allowed in the villa because of the environment.
“There were a couple of things that I was flagging in [the Love Island] environment with Mercedes—definitely one being the way he spoke to me when we had our first argument.”
Em said that the time apart made her reevaluate her relationship with Mercedes.
“We wrapped the finale at 1am and then made it to the hotel at 2:30am. Then, my flight out was 3:30am the next day, so we had 25 hours in total together [outside of the villa].
“And, we had publicity to do the next day, social media, chat to a psychologist, so there was really no time to spend together outside of the experience before I was back on a plane, and then all of a sudden back in Sydney, it was so disorienting.
“My travel home was about 35 hours. I just thought about [the relationship] on the way home and realized that I didn’t actually trust this person.”
Em confirmed that the whole villa knew that Mercedes had been on FBoy Island US twice, but she didn’t consider that a red flag until after she’d left Spain.
“I was really grappling with, ‘Is he genuine? Was he just trying to make it to the end? He’s done it two times before.'” she explained.
Em told 9Now that she and Mercedes decided to take a break after the show because of the distance and never ended up getting back together.
Would Em consider getting back together with Mercedes?
Although Em and Mercedes share the title of Love Island Australia 2024 winners, Em told Chattr that she doesn’t see the couple rekindling their connection.
“Honestly, one instance happened outside of the villa very fast that crossed my boundaries and that definitely added to me not wanting to continue things further pretty quickly after being back home,” Em explained.
“There were massive boundaries crossed, so no, I would not be comfortable rekindling things.”
On the plus side, a single Em means we could see her on the next season of Love Island All Stars.
Stream Love Island Australia on 9Now.
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