Love Island cast WILL watch England’s Euros final match in the villa – breaking huge ITV rule
LOVE Island contestants will watch England’s Euro final in the villa, The Sun can exclusively reveal.
The Three Lions roared their way to victory last night with a 2-1 win over the Netherlands in the semi-final.
They will now take on Spain in Sunday night’s final at 8pm.
Often the show’s cast are kept in the dark about events in the real world, including the recent General Election, but bosses have decided to let them cheer on the national team.
A source said: “ITV bosses don’t want the villa to miss out so the huge decision has been made to show it on a big screen – they’ll be watching it while AfterSun is on live on Sunday.
“The rule has always been that NO outside info goes into the villa – bombshells are banned from even saying who won the general election – but this is a very special exception.”
The strict rule to ban outside information from entering the villa has been flouted before.
When England reached the 2020 final against Italy the cast were allowed to watch on a big screen.
This year’s cohort will be hoping for a different outcome as Italy triumphed on penalties on that occasion.
We revealed today that Sunday’s episode has been pushed back until 10pm to allow fans to watch the match over on ITV.
However, if there is extra time followed by penalties, Love Island‘s viewing figures might be severely impacted.
Coverage of the football showpiece begins at 6.30pm on ITV and is scheduled to run through until 10.45pm. Though the game itself will be wrapped up by 10pm if it ends in normal time.
Last night’s Love Island was also pushed back by an hour, and the Three Lions did reality fans a favour by scoring in stoppage time to see off the Dutch.
Aston Villa strike Ollie Watkins scored a superb strike to send England through to their second consecutive Euros final where they will be underdogs against a strong Spanish side.
But that doesn’t matter one bit to England fans who erupted in the stands in Dortmund and on sofas around the country at the final whistle.
Some 21.6 million viewers across TV and streaming watched ITV’s coverage of the game.
It is the highest peak audience on a single channel since December 2022, when the nation watched England’s quarter final exit to Croatia in the FIFA World Cup.
Villa blackout: the big occasions Islanders have missed
General Election 2024: The Islanders have no idea who triumphed in the recent election with no coverage of Labour’s landslide win screened inside the villa.
World Cups: While the Euro finales have been deemed worthy of a relaxing of the rules, the last two World Cups haven’t. In 2018, ITV ruled out showing England’s semi-final clash with Croatia. And four years later England’s quarter-final game against France was also banned.
Oscars nomination: All Star Chris Taylor landed a surprise and very brief role in the hit movie Barbie, which picked up eight Oscars nominations ahead of this year’s ceremony.
But the cheeky chappy was holed up in the villa when the news was announced and was unable to revel in being part of the awards season buzz.
Brexit: The ground-shaking political fallout of Brexit wasn’t felt in the winter villa in January 2020 when the nation voted to leave the European Union.
Though it would eventually get its moment in the villa in the summer series when Hayley Hughes famously revealed she had no idea what it was despite it dominating the national discourse for what felt like a lifetime.
Lionesses Euros success: The women’s team showed their male counterparts how to do it on July 31, 2022.
They beat Germany 2-1 at Wembley to bring football home and send the nation crazy. Just a day later Love Island came to an end with Davide and Ekin-Su crowned as winners.