Love Island USA’s Chelley & Ace Reveal More Pre-Show Connections

And it turns out, Amaya wasn’t even the only girl she had previously crossed paths with.

“Even Andreina [Santos] was another person that I knew,” she added, “so it was a joke in there that, ‘Oh, Chelley knows everybody.’ We really all just knew each other. Some people were connected in the weirdest ways.”

In a separate interview with Blavity, Ace revealed that even many of the boys had unexpected connections to each other.

“I knew Pepe [Garcia] before coming into this experience,” he revealed during the joint interview. “Nic [Vansteenberghe] and Jeremiah [Brown] knew each other and worked together.”

Adding that the production teams have an extensive process that goes into choosing the Islanders, Chelley chimed in to emphasize that they had no power over the situation.

“This is out of our hands,” she explained. “We just show up. We get an invite, and we show up. It wasn’t a secret that we follow each other on social media.”

As for how Ace and Chelley’s prior connection affected how they moved once they arrived in the villa? Well, it initially encouraged them to branch out and get to know other people.

“It’s no secret that Chelley and I knew each other before the experience,” Ace told Variety in a joint interview published July 11. “We had a conversation that went, ‘I know who you are. You know who I am, but that doesn’t mean we gotta be coupled up together right away. We’re here to explore and find our partner.’”

So, despite their instant connection, the dancer decided to couple up with Amaya during the Peacock reality series’ first recoupling.

“I wanted to do that with Amaya and see where things could go,” he explained. “I was trying to get to know Amaya more, and that’s where my head was at.”

And while some viewers felt that the two were being strategic in the ways they navigated the villa, ultimately ending up back together, Ace made it clear that he was just trying to be “very intentional” in his conversations.

“I never was strategic,” he insisted. “I stated how I felt every time. It was never a matter of Ace being messy. If you feel a way, come talk to me about it, or I’ll pull you aside to clear the air.”

For more about the season seven cast of Love Island USA, keep reading.

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