In June, Love Island host Maya Jama sashayed into the Majorcan villa for the opening episode of the hit ITV show to the squeals and cheers of its assembled contestants. Wreathed in smiles, she welcomed her romantic hopefuls to the 13th series, perhaps relieved that it would be their love lives under the microscope rather than hers. For only days earlier, she had felt obliged to speak for the first time on her recent split from Manchester City footballer Ruben Dias.
‘I am an all or nothing girl,’ she’d declared on social media. ‘I will love loudly or not at all and if it ends it ends.’
Following news of the split in May, she’d taken the scorched-earth approach to break-ups and deleted all 18 months’ worth of loved-up Instagram posts featuring Ruben from her profile.
So ITV’s flagship dating show couldn’t have come at a more awkward time for the statuesque beauty who would preside over the contestants’ couplings, ‘recouplings’ and subsequent fallouts until the finale last month.
And for the first time, The Mail on Sunday can reveal the extent of the secret heartbreak Maya was keeping from millions of viewers, as she mourned the loss of the relationship she hoped would last ‘for ever’.
‘She was devastated and it was tough for her,’ a source close to the ITV darling told the MoS. ‘She had to smile for the cameras and spend her evenings surrounded by people falling in and out of love.
‘You couldn’t make it up. She thought she had found her forever person and then she had to watch over a villa of single people trying to find theirs.
As Maya Jama sashayed into the Love Island villa in Majorca back in June, she was mourning the loss of a relationship she had hoped would last ‘for ever’
She split from Manchester City footballer Ruben Dias in May – and friends say she was ‘the happiest she had ever been’ while with him
‘She was the happiest she had ever been while with Ruben,’ the source added. ‘She didn’t expect, or ever want, it to come to an end.’
The pair had been together for not even two years, but she was ‘really planning a future with him’.
How different it all looked last December when the couple moved into their ‘dream home’. The £4million property in Cheshire’s exclusive Alderley Edge had been an Omaze prize draw mansion, whose lucky winner had sold it to the couple’s new landlord.
They were facing a demanding summer of commitments, as she was due to film Love Island at the same time as he would be on World Cup duty with Portugal in America. But, as the MoS can reveal, devoted Maya had built flights into her schedule to be with Ruben stateside and in Cheshire upon his return.
It must have reminded her of the early days in their relationship when she would travel from her London home to his pad in Manchester, before she eventually relocated up North for him.
On holiday in Morocco. Since the split, she has clocked up more than 20,000 miles, travelling to Sweden, Mykonos, Majorca, Miami, New York, Ibiza, Morocco and back for parties in London
But by May rumours were circulating that the 29-year-old footballer had been sending late-night social media ‘follow’ requests to female influencers – ‘toe-dipping’ in Love Island lingo.
Maya, 32, remained tight-lipped as she was, perhaps ironically, in Ardross Castle in Scotland, filming the second series of Celebrity Traitors. But the pair eventually confirmed their break-up, with Ruben strongly denying that he’d been unfaithful.
In an Instagram post, he wrote: ‘When my 85-year-old grandad is asking me if I’ve cheated on my girlfriend because he’s seen it repeatedly on the news, that’s where I draw the line on what’s acceptable and what’s not.
‘I believe Maya deserves all the respect in the world. Respect me, respect Maya, and understand that not always one has to betray the other in order for a relationship to end.’
While Maya addressed the break-up briefly ahead of Love Island filming, she’s done most of her talking with air miles.
Her 3.3 million Instagram followers have watched agog as the Radio 1 presenter has posted holiday snaps from all over the world. Since the split, she has clocked up more than 20,000 miles, travelling to Sweden, Mykonos, Majorca, Miami, New York, Ibiza, Morocco and back for parties in London.
In between the ‘I’m fine, honest’ jet-setting, she moved out of the love nest in Cheshire and back to her Hampstead pad in London.
Maya is no stranger to a public love split. She dated the three-time Brit Award winner Stormzy for five years before they briefly broke up amid allegations the rapper had been unfaithful. The pair rekindled their romance in 2023 but ended things a year later.
During her hiatus from Stormzy, Maya struck up a whirlwind romance with the NBA star Ben Simmons. The pair were romantically entangled for seven months before getting engaged, but split three months later.
Ruben, too, has a complicated relationship history, having even dated another Love Islander, Arabella Chi, including when she appeared on the All Stars spin-off in 2024 – hosted by Maya.
Prior to that, he was in a three-year relationship with the Portuguese pop star April Ivy. But it ended over ‘lifestyle differences’.
Ruben told Esquire magazine just weeks ago that he wanted to ‘settle down just like anyone else’.
But he was quick to acknowledge his job created the perception he was a womaniser and spoke of wanting to prove that there were ‘exceptions to the rule’.
For a while, Love Island’s mother superior was that exception but, as the show’s wannabe Romeos mind-numbingly say, ‘it is what it is’.
