Love Island winner Ekin-Su Culculoglu has said leaving the villa has brought her and her partner Davide Sanclimenti “closer” and that they hope to get a place together in the next couple of months.
The Turkish actress from Essex, 27, and Italian business owner, also 27, won over viewers with their fiery relationship that evolved during the eight-week series.
Following the finale, ITV revealed they had been the clear winners of the public vote with 63.7%.
Speaking on Loose Women on Monday, Culculoglu said that although she and Sanclimenti were close during the show, she feels leaving has brought them “a lot closer”.
The Italian agreed and added that coming out to reality was “not scary” but that they were getting “a lot of attention from everyone”.
The couple confirmed that they were not living with one another currently but that they are “always together” since leaving the villa last Monday.
Culculoglu added that they do have plans to move in together in “probably September, October time.”
The couple had a passionate on-and-off again relationship while on the dating show which saw them both explore other potential partners including islanders Jay Younger and Mollie Salmon.
Reflecting on how the Casa Amor villa tested their relationship, Culculoglu said: “In relationships, you’ve got to make mistakes, to know it’s right you have to have these tests.
“And in real life, whether you have a normal job, day to day walking on the street, you have to trust your partner.
“And there’s going to be people who are going to try it on you and I feel like Casa Amor was that big test.
“And the fact that whether Davide came back alone or not that was a test for him.
“My test was with Jay, that was kind of my Casa Amor experience and there was, like, obviously people at Casa Amor but literally my heart and my head was at the villa.”
Sanclimenti added that he wanted to ensure he was choosing her for the right reasons, explaining: “I always said for myself, ‘If I want to choose Ekin-Su, I want to choose her on top of everyone else not just because she’s the only girl that I fancied inside the villa’.
“So actually, what I did with Molly in Casa Amor is actually been a confirmation that I actually felt something for her. I realised that what we had was unique.”
Gemma Owen and Luca Bish came in second place with 14.5% of the public vote, Indiyah Polack and Dami Hope took third place with 11.8%, and Tasha Ghouri and Andrew Le Page came fourth, scoring 10.1%.