Daily Mail Australia can exclusively reveal that Love Island Australia winners Em and Mercedes, who were crowned season victors and took home $50,000 in Monday night’s final, are no longer together.
Unlike previous seasons of the dating reality show, the sixth season of the Australian spin-off was not filmed live, but in July.
Sydney model and content creator Em, 26, entered the villa on day one and emerged as an early fan favorite for her authentic and direct attitude.
The brunette beauty, who was initially paired with controversial contestant Taylor Reid, later found love with American model and late contestant, Mercedes Knox.
The couple bonded over their love of travel and adventure, and a mutual desire not to rush into settling down to have children.
On Monday, the now exes revealed everything that has happened since they joyfully left the villa with the final prize money, as boyfriend and girlfriend.
Love Island Australia 2024 winners Em and Mercedes pose with presenter Sophie Monk
Love Island Australia 2024 Finalists (LR): Kaylah and Erich; Mercedes and Em; Nico and Mia
Em returned to Sydney for a week after filming wrapped, before heading to the US to spend a month traveling around the United States and spending some quality time with her new long-distance boyfriend.
“After the show, I was literally at home in Sydney for six days, before traveling abroad for a month,” Em said.
“Which was kind of nice, because I didn’t really have to assimilate directly into, quote-unquote, real life.”
Love Island alum Mercedes, 28, lives in Dallas, Texas.
Her Love Island win with Em is actually the male model’s third reality show crown, as Mercedes has already won two different seasons of FBoy Island, USA.
“There are a lot of comments saying that the rest of the cast didn’t know that I had been on reality TV before, and that is absolutely false,” he said.
Em said she had spent most of her trip to the United States in Los Angeles, California and New York, “which was amazing.”
It’s unclear exactly how long they stayed as a couple after the cameras stopped rolling.
“The month after we left the villa, Em and I broke up,” Mercedes revealed in the three-way call.
‘And I feel like it wouldn’t have worked because of our differences in communication style. But I think we’re better off as friends. Since I came home I’ve focused on myself, I opened a bar.’
When asked what her personal highlights of the season were, Mercedes said it was definitely the moment she asked Em to be her girlfriend.
He added that the public vote to crown them winners was “definitely the right decision.”
When asked what her personal highlights of the season were, Mercedes said it was definitely the moment she asked Em to be her girlfriend.
“The last straw was asking her to be my girlfriend,” he said without hesitation. “I have no regrets.”
‘I was going to tell you when one day we did a synchronized swimming routine in the pool with Barbie Girl, Aqua. “It was a really fun day,” Em revealed of her highlight moment.
Love Island Australia’s sixth season promised to bring the drama. And so it was.
Fans of the global franchise say they’ve never seen a divide among female contestants like the one that emerged after Em’s partner Taylor reteamed with nurse Hannah, who described her choice as between “a Barbie or a Wicked Witch.”
On TikTok, one fan commented, “I feel like being a Hannah and Kaylah fan vs. an Em and Mimi fan tells me EVERYTHING I need to know about you,” in a post that racked up 23,000 likes.
“I think there was definitely a lot of misogyny or internalized misogyny in the show,” Em told the Daily Mail.
“I feel very strongly about not wanting to settle down and live this normal life, getting married and all those stereotypical things that you’re expected to want when you’re a young woman.
‘I am proud to have been able to offer a platform to girls who it resonates with those parts of myself.’
The drama began during movie night when a film titled ‘Mean Girls’ was shown on the screen, which showed Hannah (right) calling Em a ‘witch’ behind her back.
Em, photographed during the Truth Bike game, received a lot of criticism for saying she probably wouldn’t be friends with Hannah or Kaylah in real life.
Mimi, Sophie and Em are still as close as ever, Em told the Daily Mail, and Sophie is currently visiting the two Sydneysiders in Bondi.
“Obviously, re-watching the show has been pretty fun, for the most part. “I feel like the last few weeks I’ve been really ready to finish it,” she continued.
The content creator said she feels her lived experience of being inside the villa was fairly reflected on television.
“There were definitely a couple of things that were really hard to watch. But ohInterestingly, it was also quite validating.
‘SSeeing how I felt there reflected in me, in the way I lived it, was almost healing.”
Em also confirmed that her on-screen friendship with Mimi and Sophie is stronger than ever in the real world, while Mercedes said she has already spoken to Mimi’s ex-partner Steph “at least four times today.”
‘Mimi and I live in Bondi so I speak to Mims every other day. “We are very close and I am also very close to Sophie,” Em said.
“She’s in Sydney right now, and we just spent the week together on the Gold Coast.”
‘Kiwi Mimi’ has confirmed she is rekindling a romance with Irishman Dylan, after the pair were paired up early in the series and then split.
“All of us who were on the show are good with each other,” Em added. “There’s no hard feelings there for the most part, and it’s just not that deep.
“We all laugh because we feel so different about certain situations now that we haven’t experienced them.”
Dylan and Mimi, pictured as a couple, reportedly rekindled their romance after the series.
Both Mercedes and Em are very single and confirmed that they have no plans to date in the immediate future.
‘I’m super single. I’m not talking to anyone, I’m not texting anyone. “I’m as single as possible,” he said.
Meanwhile, Em has been “hustling” at her modeling and content creation work since the show, and has also landed a job at a vintage shop in Newtown.
“Having an active date was against our contract,” he joked.
‘But even now, I need a mini-mo(ment) to get back to my own life. It’s been crazy for me to be here. So I don’t expect to have a date anytime soon.’
“I hate it when people say they’re ‘working on themselves,'” he mimicked. ‘But honestly? My favorite moments in my life have been when I am single, I feel like that is when I have developed so much as a person.
“Yes, my happiest moments have been alone.”
Kaylah and Erich appear to be the only couple from the series who are still together.
In a more surprising move, Taylor has been pictured packing on the PDA with Sydney resident Xanthe, 21, who Zane dumped on Love Island early on.