Laura Whitmore says Maura Higgins is her favourite Love Island contestant ever

The Bray native, who is due to give birth to her first child with Iain Stirling in the next month, is gearing up to get back to her presenting duties on the hit dating show this summer.

The reality show was cancelled last summer due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking on Dublin’s 98FM, Laura revealed that her all-time favourite contestant to enter the villa is Maura Higgins.

Maura, who is originally from Longford, shook things up in the 2019 season and quickly became a fan favourite.

Laura admitted: “I always say one of the best contestants ever from someone who was a fan and watched it was Maura Higgins because just her personality. She’s stunning but her personality and counterbalancing her personality with other people’s personalities.

“I think that that’s really important because a lot of media put a lot of onus on appearances. And while that’s one side maybe of television, you want the banter and the fun. You want people to kind of rile things up a bit,” the 35-year-old continued.

Laura shared that more people than ever have applied for the upcoming season of Love Island but left listeners in the dark about the new villa’s location.

“You probably know more than I do,” she laughed when asked where the new season would be taking place.

“Every time I do an interview, there’s a different article written somewhere going ‘it’s in Jersey’ or ‘it’s in Greece’ or wherever. And I’m like ‘is it?’”

“So many people work on Love Island. It’s a huge production, I mean hundreds and hundreds of people and they’ve been working on it for the last year since the previous series so they know a lot more than I do. I’ll just show up and swan in when they need me,” she added.