Love Island star Jourdan Riane has opened up about her shocking split from Danny Williams and admits she’s ‘done’ with dating other celebrities after their ‘hurtful’ break-up.
Fans of the couple were shocked earlier this month when Jourdan and Danny confirmed the end of their relationship after falling in love on the ITV2 dating series this summer.
It came days after Danny, 21, was accused of cheating on Jourdan and ‘flirting with other women’, which he strongly denied.
There were rumours the couple had reconciled after flying to Los Angeles together for a work trip with JD Sports last weekend, but Jourdan insists they’re not back together.
Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, the model said: ‘I’m out here in LA for work, he’s out here for work and I was never going to say to him, “You can’t work”. So it’s more a case of let’s just keep it amicable and keep it moving.
‘We haven’t spoken about things on the trip, mainly because it’s been about work. But I’d be lying if I said it was easy.’
She continued: ‘Definitely not the easiest, definitely quite a hard situation to be in. But I kind of try and put the amicable side of things to the front of it.
‘Because out of everything, I did get really hurt by the situation so I’m trying to stand my ground and have my self-respect.
‘My mum raised me to be the type of person that, regardless of anything, to be the adult and take the high ground because to me it was about forgetting everything that happened and just be civil.’
In fact, Jourdan says she was so ‘hurt’ by the ordeal that she has no interest in dating another famous man again. That includes her fellow Love Islander Ovie Soko whom some have tried to ship together now that he’s single again after splitting from India Reynolds.
‘I think I’m done with dating someone else in the public eye,’ she admitted confidently.
‘No more public relationships for me, I think I’m going to go back to being as private as possible and the easiest way to do that is to date someone who’s relatively unknown.’
Jourdan added of Ovie: ‘He’s an amazing guy, we really got on in the villa. He’s such a sweet guy. But Ovie’s a national figure now so I’m pretty sure he’s got about a million people waiting for him.’
The 24-year-old explained that her relationship with Danny broke down in a short amount of time.
‘It kind of happened quite fast and, from being in the public eye, something I really like to cherish is the private moments. So as much as it’s impossible to have a private relationship when you’re in the public eye, I tried to keep my relationship quite private,’ she explained.
In light of Yewande Biala’s famous warning about Danny – ‘what goes around comes around’ – does Jourdan regret not listening to the advice?
‘No, not at all,’ she admits.
‘I feel like there’s multiple men and women in the world based on what they’ve done in the past, who kind of get pre-judged. My mum always raised me to give people the benefit of the doubt because someone can do things with multiple women but act different in a situation with someone else.’
With all the recent Love Island break-ups – Ovie and India, Amber Gill and Greg O’Shea – fans of the series have wondered if the couples are under a contract to stay together for a certain amount of time.
Jourdan refutes the idea and states: ‘I went on the show to genuinely find a connection, found it and it just didn’t go to plan.
‘There’s no contracts. They put you in an environment where natural feelings and natural relationships develop at a faster pace. And we are still real people with real feelings and as much as people love to sit there and say it’s fake, unless you’re in it, you don’t really know what it feels like.
‘You genuinely feel like that person is the one for you.’
She added: ‘For me there was no, you have to be in the relationship for this long, but it’s for real people with real feelings and the hardest part of all of the relationship is the basic regularities of every normal relationship that everyone has, but in the public eye with millions of people judging you for it.’
Jourdan may be putting her dating life on hold for a while but her career at least seems to be taking off – the model teased she’s got some exciting projects in the pipeline with her acting, including a mysterious project that will be released in the US next week.
In other words, she’s well and truly booked and busy, heartbreak aside.
Jourdan spoke on behalf of Bliss Sanctuary for Women, which offers a tranquil retreat for women who are travelling and want ultimate relaxation hassle free. To enjoy yoga and petal baths like Jourdan did at the retreat, visit the Bliss website.
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