Olivia Attwood reveals fiancé Bradley Dack showed up the night BEFORE she left for Love Island

She soared to fame on the 2017 series of the ITV2 dating series where she had a tumultuous romance with ex Chris Hughes.

And Olivia Attwood has revealed that her now fiancé Bradley Dack showed up at her flat the night before she left for Love Island.

Talking on PrettyLittleThing’s Behind Closed Doors podcast, the former TOWIE star, 29, admitted that she joined the ITV2 dating show as her on-off footballer partner, 26, didn’t want to ‘commit’ at the time.

Olivia divulged: ‘I don’t know if I’ve actually told anyone this before, so this is a full exclusive! I told him, ”I said this is what’s happening” and he was just silent on the phone and I was like, ”You didn’t wanna commit or whatever so this is what it is.” 

‘Anyway I flew back from Germany and I literally had a few days to pack, my best friend was coming to my house and was helping me pack and I was getting picked up by a chaperone from the show at 5am in the morning.

‘He [Bradley] turned up at my flat at midnight the night before I left. He’d had like a penny drop moment.’ 

Talking about her experience on Love Island, Olivia said that she found the show ‘therapeutic’ and she was ‘unapologetically myself’. 

She continued: ‘What I found from doing Love Island weirdly, because ultimately you’d think it would have the opposite effect.

‘I think, previous to that I’d always used all my relationships and the men in my life like a crutch so I felt beautiful when they told me I was beautiful, I thought I was funny when they told me I was funny.

‘What Love Island taught me is that I don’t need to be someone else to tell me that, I just need to like myself and be confident in who I am and that’s enough. On Love Island I was so unfiltered, I was unapologetically myself.’

She added: ‘For the first time I think in ages in a weird way, because you think being on national TV it would have the opposite effect but weirdly I just kind of was in the villa with no outside influence.’

Listing examples, she said: ‘No one to guide me or tell me ”don’t do that, don’t say that” not having an ex-boyfriend shush you – I was just a law into myself and sometimes to my own detriment, but it was quite like a therapeutic experience. 

‘I kind of in a weird way found this, respect myself is the wrong word, but I kind of thought like ”oh, I am other things than just a girl that’s got big boobs and can look good for a job.”

‘I got criticism in Love Island but there was also a lot of love, and that gave me this sense of self-worth that I hadn’t had for a long time.’

Talking about her new ITVBe reality show Olivia Meets Her Match with Bradley, the reality star said: ‘I felt so misrepresented on the shows I’d been on.’ 

The eight-episode series follows Olivia and her Blackburn Rovers footballer fiancé Bradley, as they plan their wedding and buy their first home in Cheshire.

The couple got engaged in Dubai last year and the programme will document their relationship as they prepare to take it the next level, with the Love Island star planning her dream wedding.

Olivia previously had her own reality show with ex-boyfriend Chris Hughes called Crackin’ On.

However, their relationship took a turn for the worse when Chris, 27, broke up with her on camera, telling her the relationship wasn’t making him happy anymore.

Olivia then reunited with Bradley, whom she was with before Love Island, while Chris found love with his now ex-girlfriend Jesy Nelson.

Talking about her previous reality show with Chris, the blonde beauty said: ‘When I came out of Love Island I did the show with Chris, I don’t like to dwell on it but it did happen it’s out there and obviously it was terrible.

‘It was not a good time, we were at the end of our being together, it just didn’t work out. So I felt like I loved making the show but it was the wrong person.

‘Because we weren’t right for each other and it was the wrong time, and it kind of felt like, ”Ahhh,” I was just getting my teeth into making this show and obviously just because of the way it worked out it ended like that. 

‘Then I was always speaking to the guys at ITV and was like, ”I’d love to do another show, and sort of let people back in and show me when I’m not crying and arguing with someone.”

‘Because that’s all that we did and I said, ”I’m not actually like that, I’m actually a happy person.”’

She added: ‘Everything kind of fell into place with what I’m doing right now, with being engaged and moving up here [Manchester].

‘It was quite a lot of big change and I think we all just agreed it would be a good time to start capturing some of this because quite a lot’s happening.’

The interview is available to listen to on PrettyLittleThing’s Behind Closed Doors podcast with host Natalie O’Leary.