Today’s Love Island Debate: Do The Islanders Already Know Gemma Is Michael Owen’s Daughter?

It was the debate of the evening during last night’s Love Island: at what point will the islanders realise that Gemma Owen is this year’s celebrity-adjacent contestant? The 19-year-old dressage competitor is yet to reveal that her dad is former professional footballer Michael Owen, but if Love Island history has taught us anything, a confession is imminent.

Here at Grazia though, we have another theory… the islanders already know. Or at least, some of them might. Our spidey senses (for nepotism baby gossip, of course) first began tingling when Gemma sat down to get to know her new partner Liam Llewellyn a little better. When the topic of football came up, Liam’s ears pricked. At the mere sight of a woman vaguely interested in football (that is, she asked whether or not Liam succeeded in his dreams to become a professional footballer… he didn’t fyi), he was aghast. ‘I feel like you’ve dated an ex-footballer or something’ he said. A visibly uncomfortable Gemma confirmed she has not, to which Liam couldn’t quite believe.

It was the kind-of awkward and random question that felt orchestrated, particularly the use of ‘ex-footballer’ as opposed to ‘footballer’. Gemma is only 19, what are the chances she would be dating someone who USED to be a professional athlete – and thus is what, maybe 30 at youngest? Liam’s question, followed by Gemma’s reaction, is what made viewers question… does he already know Gemma’s dad is Michael Owen or have producers just told him to ask about her affiliation with footballers in hopes she reveals the news herself?

Intrigue was piqued again moments later, when Liam asked Gemma what her last name is in front of a group of people. She answered, but immediately deflected the conversation – and thus insulted Luca Bish’s last name, but that’s a debate we dove into here. Once again the question seemed to come out of thin air, when have contestants ever discussed their last names on Love Island before? Naturally, some viewers are now convinced that Liam absolutely knows who Gemma’s dad is.

And frankly, he absolutely could! Gemma Owen was rumoured to be cast on the show from as early as May this year. While Islanders are isolated from each other before entering the villa – so as not to Google each other and reduce the authenticity of that first meet, we can only guess – they’re typically only kept on lockdown from the rest of the world for about 10 days. That means all the islanders could’ve been reading up on who their potential cast mates could be for weeks before going into lockdown, and Gemma was the biggest name to go through the rumour mill at the time.

It's unlikely we’ll ever know for sure who is aware of Gemma’s famous roots right now though. Every other season, producers have waited for the famous relative in question to reveal their identity themselves, after all it makes for a lot more drama during that typically lackluster first week of dating. It does seem as though Gemma is reluctant to mention her dad this time though, so maybe we’ll have to count on Liam’s strangely prying questions for that villa scandal after all.

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