With the latest series of Love Island just around the corner, fans have gone mad at the idea of a TV legend entering the villa.
As the first ten contestants for the series were announced, a rather left-of-field suggestion for who could join them was made.
What started out as a joke has escalated to what could be an actually pretty amazing idea to shake up the reality TV show. A Twitter account called @JustRandomThoughts posted that Coronation Street favourite Gail Platt would be a contestant this year, and hilarity has ensued.
‘BREAKING: Gail Platt set to enter the Love Island Villa in under 2 weeks time,’ the tweet reads. ‘With 6 marriages and 4 dead husbands under her belt, she’s truly hopefully she can finally find ‘the one’.’
ITV’s Twitter account responded to the joke tweet with its own tongue-in-cheek response: ‘We can confirm this is legit’, complete with the 100 emoji. Cue an absolute barrage of fan jokes.
One tweeted: ‘“Hi I'm Gail Platt and I'm from Weatherfield, Manchester, I have 3 kids and am unlucky in love, my ideal person is somebody who doesn't end up dead once they have married me!" #Corrie #LoveIsland’.
Another perfectly summed up Gail’s unlucky-in-love plotlines on the soap by tweeting: ‘They don't have room for all her baggage’, while another was curious if any other Corrie stars might be appearing” ‘Is Ken Barlow going in as well lol’.
Another name checked one of Gail’s ex-husbands: ‘Expect Richard hillman to partner up with her,’ and one fan tweeted: ‘The blokes on love Island are double checking their life insurance policies…'
We can’t deny Gail would be a perfect candidate for romance, after her insanely bad run of relationships on the soap. But it looks to be only a joke, which is a shame really. We’d be here for some middle-aged romance representation on the reality TV series.
This isn’t even the only Love Island and Coronation Street crossover. Molly Marsh– one of this year’s contestants and a social media curator and theatre performer from Doncaster – is none other than the daughter of Corrie actress Janet Marsh, who played multiple characters on the soap.