Entertainment
How on Earth did Toby Aromolaran become Love Island’s voice of reason?
Toby’s redemption arc deserves a round of applause (Picture: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock)
Okay, I have no idea how this happened, but all of a sudden Toby Aromolaran is the one I’m rooting for in the Love Island villa.
I know. I am just as shocked as you are.
This Hashtag United footballer has gone from being a hashtag lost cause to somehow, unfathomably, the voice of reason on that darned hashtag reality show.
If we’re going to get deep and talk about redemption stories, and character arcs, this guy is the epitome of a cheesy reality TV ‘journey’.
In June, we were gifted a lad who had NFI what he wanted, flopping like a flaccid fish between any lady who had caught his eye (to the point memes were created of him cracking on with the show’s host Laura Whitmore) and insisting you can ‘manifest’ your shoe size.
Now he’s calling Chloe Burrows ‘The One’ and imparting solid life and dating advice for his fellow Islanders.
Ugh, the leaps and bounds Toby has made since he was hastily left on the bench in the first episode makes me sick. It’s the stuff of producers’ dreams, isn’t it?
Well, what a fool I was to doubt Toby. I don’t know how the lad turned it around, but he’s a G-darn oracle and lovable rogue for whom I want nothing but happiness.
It’s almost as if the fact he has zero game and very little charm has worked wonders for the kid, as he went from a bumbling boy to a pillar of the house who, dare I say, is in with a real shot of winning the £50,000 prize money alongside Chloe come Monday’s finale.
Could these two take it out? (Picture: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock)
While the guys his age (22, if you were wondering) I’ve come across in my incredibly wise 30 years on this planet would rather live a thousand baby challenges than get real about their feelings, Toby has stayed true to himself – even if that means unknowingly creating drama and hurting some feelings. But, remarkably, even when he’s letting someone down it comes from a place of hopelessness rather than from anywhere malevolent.
If anything, he’s just pure chaos.
Toby started to turn the ship around from villainous entertainment to actually in with a shot when he, to the utter bewilderment of both fan and Islander, decided to round back to Chloe and get serious. All of a sudden, this annoying little brother figure turned into our only hope for an unproblematic win.
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It’s not just the romantic ups and downs. He’s proven to be a pillar of support for the lads and won my heart when he pledged to Teddy Soares that the boys would ‘help carry the load’ during his bumpy patch with Faye Winter post Mad Movies.
I also did not expect him to be the Confucious of the villa and impart some solid advice to Jake Cornish, amid drama in his relationship with Liberty Poole, as he reminded the ‘water engineer’ (it’s a plumber, right?) his priority was his partner and not the villa gossip. And before that he showed his loyalty by pledging to wait outside the toilet as Jake cooled down.
Oh, that was also around the same time he kept shtum on what Chloe had said about water-engineer-definitely-plumber Jake. We love a loyal lad on all levels and this goes some way to tell me he was never really there for the drama. The lad struggles to spell Chloe’s name in melon, he’s hardly adept at stirring the pot.
With less than a week to go, the way he’s shown us his growth and emotional intelligence has captivated me more than these couples left vying for the title, I tell you.
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Plus, he’s a meme king.
Not every path to lasting love is as simple as locking eyes across a multi-million-pound Spanish villa before professing your exclusivity a week or two later. But in somehow forming one of the more solid couples on the show, he’s managed to ace the friendship test and still be entertaining AF for us at home.
Hashtag Toby for the hashtag win, I say.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing angela.pearson@metro.co.uk.
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MORE : Love Island: Abigail Rawlings ‘doesn’t regret’ picking Toby Aromolaran after Casa Amor
