'Love Island All Stars' to return in celebration of ITV dating show's 10th anniversary - but fans are divided

‘Love Island’ spin-off show ‘All Stars’ will return to our screens for a second series to mark the show’s 10th anniversary.

The series, which was a huge hit with viewers when it launched its first series earlier this year sees former Love Islanders venture back into TV’s most talked about villa for a second chance at finding love.

The show saw several new couples form between former contestants, but only two of them remain together now. They include winners Tom Clare and Molly Smith. Also still together are third place couple Joshua Ritchie and Sophie Piper.

The news of the return of the series was announced on the official ‘Love Island’ X account, with a post that simply read: “All Stars. Series 2 #LoveIsland”

‘Love Island’ was an ITV celebrity dating show when it was launched in 2005. The first series was called ‘Celebrity Love Island’, but by the time the second series aired in 2006 the word celebrity had been dropped from the name. In the early days, 12 single celebrities would spend five weeks on an island in Fiji and the final couple at the end would win £100,000. The show was then axed due to disappointing ratings.

In 2015, ITV announced that the show would be returning - but with everyday people rather than celebrities. Since then, it has been hugely successful and influential. ‘Love Island’ became ITV2’s most watched show in the network’s history in 2018, and in 2020 it was the most watched TV show among its target audience of 16 to 34 year olds.

The show lasts for several weeks, with a new hour-long episode airing daily. Every episode shows new content that has happened in the villa over the previous 24 hours, except the episodes which air on a Saturday night which have always been a highlights show.

The Love Island prize money stands at £50,000, and the sum has stayed the same since the show launched. For the first seven series’ of Love Island UK, the winning couple were giving the option to share the prize fund with their new partner or try to steal it all for themselves. Every couple, however, decided to split the cash with their beau, and they each took home £25,000. This ‘split or steal’ option was removed from the show’s format in 2022.

It is not known yet when series 2 of ‘Love Island All Stars’ will launch, but the first season aired from mid-January so we can expect season two to air at around the same time. Host Maya Jama is also expected to return.

Opinion was split between viewers over whether or not they wanted to see a return of the spin-off show. Some were pleased, making comments under the official announcement post on X like “Oh! Series 1 was outstanding btw” and “We can’t wait”. Others, however, were less than impressed. One said: “Y’all can actually keep this. It is not needed at all.” Others said the first series “wasn’t great” so they didn’t want a second. One fan also took the opportunity to plead with ITV bosses to create an All Stars version of ‘Big Brother’ instead.