It was two for the price of one during Monday night’s Love Island elimination, with both Vanessa Sierra and Maurice Salib sent packing from the villa.
Despite starting off as the Queen of the villa with her King Matthew Zukowski, things soured for Vanessa when she was labelled as fake and accused of only being on the show to boost her profile.
Now To Love chatted exclusively with the brunette beauty about why things are done between her and Matt, plus she addresses those claims that Married At First Sight‘s Jessika Power would be entering the villa in a bid to boost ratings.
Now To Love: Vanessa, what a shocker of an elimination! But it seemed like you had a pretty strong feeling that you were going home.
Vanessa: I sort of suspected that it would come down to an Islander vote. Over the last few days, after Josh and Luke came in, they sort of had it in for me and slowly one by one turned all the Islanders against me with false comments and so come the recoupling time, all the Islanders had been talking behind my back and I just hadn’t had a chance to mend things with everyone.
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I even packed my bags before the recoupling ceremony; I was like ‘Girls I’m seriously out!’ It was just s— luck because it came down to the three boys [Adam, Josh and Luke] voting the person they thought should go home and those three boys were the ones that had it in for me.
Vanessa admits she packed her bags before the recoupling ceremony as she was convinced she’d be kicked out.
(Image: Nine Network)The boys, said some pretty full-on things about you but you’ve always said that you were genuine and looking for love. Do you stand by that?
Absolutely! I think [Josh and Luke] came in based on what they’d seen in the media with this idea of me without giving me a chance. The minute that Josh came in, he didn’t say a nice word to me- the first thing he said to me was ‘Do you feel like you always play the victim?’ and I was like ‘What do you mean?’ and he said ‘The articles about you.’
READ MORE: Love Island 2019: How to tell twins Josh and Luke Packham apart
I was like ‘Do you understand what I actually went through for those articles to come out about me? I don’t just play victim, I’ve actually gone through something.’ They came in telling all the boys that I’m just in it for fame and I think it was just unfair really.
According to Vanessa, the twins told all the boys in the Villa that she was only on the show for fame.
(Image: Nine Network)It seems like it was the guys who had issues with you rather than the girls.
The girls were absolutely fine and the dynamics in the villa were quite calm. I got along with absolutely everyone in the villa before the boys came in and the minute that they did a bomb went off and there was a massive divide between the girls and the guys and it turned into a bit of a boys’ club.
READ MORE: Love Island‘s Vanessa Sierra has an ex you may recognise from Married At First Sight
WATCH: Vanessa and Matthew’s first kiss. Post continues after video…
There were a lot of tears from Matt in that final recoupling, do you think he was putting it on?
I questioned how genuine he was. When I started to find out that Matt was hearing all these things about me, he wasn’t relaying anything to me. Still now, I don’t know 100 per cent of what was said about me.
I caught wind of a few comments that were said that Matt was never open and honest about telling me and on top of that he never shut anything down or had my back. I do believe he had some feelings for me but I don’t think he was actually that genuine because if you genuinely care about someone, you’ve got their back and at the end of the day he didn’t.
“I do believe he had some feelings for me but I don’t think he was actually that genuine.”
(Image: Nine Network)You also said that you won’t be reaching out to Matt now that you’ve left, is that still the case?
I do believe Matt and I would’ve worked outside of the show because we wouldn’t have had those villa whispers as we call it, like Chinese whispers. When someone speaks poorly of you, you can just pick up your phone and check facts whereas you can’t do that in the villa and that was one of the biggest issues. Now that Matt’s let me down, it’s put him off me completely.
You may not be chatting to Matt but Sam said he’d be keen to meet up on the outside. Would you be up for that?
I did say to someone on my way out ‘One of the first things I do when I get out is call Sam!’ I genuinely connected with him and even if nothing more comes of it, I want to have him as a friend because he is such an amazing guy and he’s one of the few very strong connections that I made in such a short amount of time. There’s a glimmer of hope!
WATCH: Vanessa and Sam kiss on Love Island. Post continues after video…
There have been some rumours floating around that Jessika Power would be entering the villa to stir up some drama? How would you react if you saw her?
I think those comments are very far-fetched and she’s just trying to stay relevant. I heard from someone that she wanted to confront me but I’ve seen no sign of confrontation from her.
When the Rhyce stuff happened, I did reach out to her because I thought we were friends and she just ignored my message and then all of a sudden she’s saying that she wants to confront me. I’ve waited for this moment so I don’t really know what she’s talking about.
“I think those comments are very far-fetched and she’s just trying to stay relevant.”
(Images: Nine Network/Instagram @jessika_power)Who do you reckon will make it all the way to the end of the show?
It’s a tough call. I’ve got one idea of who would win and one idea of who would work on the outside so there are definitely some people in there who are playing the game and have a strong chance of winning and others who could work on the outside but because they’re taking it slow in there, they might not win.
To be honest, I’m not too sure about who would work on the outside in there now because my opinion was only Matthew and I would work on the outside out of everyone that was coupled up. I think Anna and Josh have a strong chance of winning but I think Josh is not genuine and will probably hurt Anna on the outside which I did say to her.
READ MORE: Who are all the Love Island Australia 2019 couples?
“I think Josh is not genuine and will probably hurt Anna on the outside which I did say to her.”
(Image: Nine Network)Are you still looking for love? Will we be seeing you on any reality shows in the future?
To be honest, after my experience in the villa I’m going to take a step back. Even though I’ve decided to cut Matthew off, I’m still heartbroken from it. I did have strong feelings for him and for now I’m just going to focus on mending those. I don’t see myself on any reality shows in the future but I will look for love when I’m ready, just not sure how long it will take for me to get over this.
I feel like the limelight was on me for a huge amount of that time, I just got picked on. The truth bike moment, everyone was going easy on everyone else and when I got on, everyone was firing at me, I was literally in the firing line and I was shot at left, right and centre. I didn’t even get a break after answering a question before someone else would slam me with something else.
” I will look for love when I’m ready, just not sure how long it will take for me to get over this.”
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