Earlier this week, I wrote a piece about Eyal - sweet, beautiful Eyal - and how, in the flush of of his post-Love Island honeymoon with fame and notoriety, he has used his newfound leverage to bag himself a modelling contract showcasing the branded college hoodies for regional UK polytechnics*. I took it to be the perfect level of fame for an ex-Love Island contestant to have achieved, both notable while being profoundly unglamorous. I thought it the apogee of the kind of low-level marketing deals granted to former contestants of reality television shows premised around Big Fucks™.
Though this is not to judge or sound too high-horsey. Were there money in it, I'm certain I would probably lend my name to the promotional literature of arms traders - that is assuming that being associated with the deputy editor of a web-based Irish media site would help boost sales of their automatic weaponry (if so, don't hesitate to get in touch, as I am cheap).
I thought it the pinnacle of banal endorsements, that nothing could trump it. But this did not take Hayley into account. Never underestimate Hayley, for though her time on the show was brief, she was the embodiment of one-up-manship. Hayley is in Dublin today. Hayley from Love Island is here. She is here to open a Virgin Media store in Pavilions Shopping Centre in Swords.
Look at that sentence. Roll it around your mouth, savour the taste. Showbusiness, if you look up showbusiness in an online dictionary it will show you a photograph of Hayley from Love Island opening a Virgin Media store in a shopping centre in Swords.
Hayley from #LoveIsland launching our Swords Pavillion Store earlier on today. pic.twitter.com/5IAfmUoE9x
— Virgin Media IE PR (@VirginMediaIEPR) July 5, 2018
She was in the store between 1-3pm. What could she do in a Virgin Media store - what could anyone do - for two hours?
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A brief interlude speculating what she could've been doing in the store for two hours.
- From the image, it seems like she was sitting on a large sofa near some astro-turfed wall, but this could realistically only take up max 11 minutes? Before the thudding tedium would become overwhelming.
-Buying old Craig David albums from the discounted bin.
-Ambling around waiting for the two hours she was booked for to elapse while thumbing through the CD racks and re-alphabetising any that she finds out of order.
- Demanding the customer service staff that they play clips from her time on Love Island on the big screens in store.
- Sauntering up to unassuming shoppers and ranting about Eyal to them.
- Accidentally purchasing a documentary box-set on the sinking of the Lusitania and getting embroiled in a protracted argument with a shop assistant over their stringent returns policy.
Though she has left the store having fulfilled the basic tenets of her pre-agreed contract, she is still around Dublin. Hayley is here. A Love Island native has found her way to these shores.
