Davide Sanclimenti and Ekin-Su Culculoglu may be crowned Love Island 2022 winners but actually ‘they’d do better as runners-up’-Meghna Amin-Entertainment – Metro

The King and Queen of Love Island have been crowned! (Picture: Matt Frost/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

After 57 days and nights getting to know each other, countless bombshells thrown in, and explosive rows more dramatic than we could have expected, Ekin-Su Culculoglu and Davide Sanclimenti have finally been crowned Love Island 2022 winners.

Fan-favourites from the start, the pair have had their fair share of drama – from Davide calling the Turkish soap star ‘a liar and an actress’ to Ekin-Su pancake battling with Nathalia Campos to win the Italian Stallion’s heart.

They’ve finally gotten their happy ending, and can now start the rest of their futures together outside of the villa.

But, seeing as there are only actually two winning couples that are still together since their stint on Love Island, is being crowned a winner actually a good thing for their relationship?

With the pressure of being a winner, all eyes of the public upon you and gaining so many opportunities as an individual let alone in their couple, could they have been better off coming as a runner-up?

Looking back at history of Love Island, it would seem so.

2021 winners Millie Court and Liam Reardon recently split, nearly a year since they exited the villa.

Liam and Millie won Love Island 2021, but recently announced their split (Picture: Matt Frost/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Meanwhile, Paige Turley and Finn Tapp from the 2020 series, and Nathan Massey and Cara De La Hoyde from the 2016 series are the only winning couples to remain together, with Cara and Nathan even sharing two children together.

There’s plenty of runner-up couples who are still together though.

Paige and Finn have remained together since the 2020 series (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Nathan Massey and Cara de la Hoyde met on day one of their Love Island stint, and now share two children together (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

The two couples that came runner-up to Millie and Liam are also still together, Chloe Burrows and Toby Aromolaran who came second, and Faye Winter and Teddy Soares who followed third.

Meanwhile, 2017 winners Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies split shortly after their Love Island stint, while their second place runner-ups Jamie Jewitt and Camilla Thurlow have two children together.

There seems to be a bit of a pattern here…

Despite their fair share of explosions in the villa, Teddy and Faye are still together (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

2017 runner ups Jamie and Camilla now have two children together (Picture: ITV/REX)

In 2019, power couple Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury took the villa by storm, and viewers thought they’d definitely be the winning couple.

But it was actually Amber Gill and last-minute bombshell Greg O’Shea that were voted in as winners, despite breaking up not long after.

Viewers were stunned when Love Island power couple Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague didn’t win (Picture: Dave Benett / Getty)

Amber Gill won Love Island series five with Greg O’Shea (Picture: Matt Frost/ITV/Shutterstock)

Metro.co.uk spoke to Louella Alderson, a relationship expert and co-founder of dating site SoSyncd, to figure out why runner-up couples seem to last longer than those crowned Love Island winners.

‘The winners of Love Island probably have the most pressure to stay together and I think that can definitely cause friction in the relationship, they know that they will be more popular and more profitable as a couple and that can obviously add to the pressure of staying together basically,’ Louella told us.

Would Ekin-Su and Davide be better off as runners up? (Picture: Matt Frost/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

She continued: ‘The winners are more likely to be thrust into the busy schedules and the Pretty Little Thing deals and they need to maximise their fifteen minutes of fame, and then they also are prioritising work and have less time to put into their relationship.

‘Also there’s the element that they could be out partying more and celebrating, and there’s always a few trust issues, people often come forward with stories about people that they’ve got with and things like that, and it can also lead to one person putting more effort into the relationship than the other.’

The pair have been on a wild journey in the villa (Picture: Matt Frost/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Speaking about Amber and Greg winning in 2019, despite knowing each other for little time as Greg entered the villa at the last minute, Louella confirmed that winning in that situation had nothing to do with their relationship, but rather how much the public supported Amber, especially after her rollercoaster ride throughout the series with Michael Griffiths.

Viewers threw their support behind Amber after her rollercoaster ride with Michael Griffiths (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Louella said: ‘Really, Amber carried that couple to the final and to the winning spot, Greg was the last person to enter the villa, and I think Amber was a public favourite but also it was so predictable that Molly Mae and Tommy would win.’

She added: ‘So I think the winning couples aren’t necessarily the most compatible couples, they are the fan favourites.

The pair were definitely fan favourites! (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

‘The public tend to favour the couples that have brought more of the good drama, the positive drama, bit more fun, rather than the couples that have coasted through, which has been quite easy, or the couples that have been quite negative.

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‘But if they win it doesn’t mean they are the most compatible, fundamentally it is in the public hands.’

With the ‘pressure’ that comes with winning in mind, before Davide and Ekin-Su were crowned winners, Louella added that if the pair had come as runners-up, ‘they’ll probably do better’, highlighting how compatible they have shown themselves to be as a couple this series.

Love Island is available to watch on ITV Hub.

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