Maya Jama should have quit Love Island years ago – she’s too good for British TV

In news that surprised absolutely no one, Maya Jama has quit Love Island after four years.

If anything, it’s a wonder it took her so long.

The Bristolian presenter has steadily become one of the UK’s brightest stars since climbing the ranks of television, from MTV host to ITV juggernauts like Love Island and The Masked Singer. 

This year she was by far the breakout star of Celebrity Traitors, the single biggest show of the last decade.

As a traitor, she carried this series on the shoulders of her designer jackets: she was the only turret resident who welcomed their role as a backstabbing killer, managing to be ruthless, cruel and consistently lovable when bumping her rivals off at a rate of knots.

It’s been two weeks since the finale and now it’s time for her to reap the rewards, starting with walking away from the ITV2 reality series and aiming higher than she ever has before.

I really hope that’s the case.

Jama has had a curious career. She’s graced the cover of Vogue, caught the attention of America without uprooting her entire life to move there and is by far the most in-demand presenter we have in the UK.

Yet, somehow I’ve always felt she’s undersold herself.

When she was announced as Love Island host in 2022, my initial reaction was that ITV2 were fools not to have snapped her up sooner. 

After the arrest of Caroline Flack just weeks before the first-ever Winter Love Island was due to begin, Laura Whitmore was swiftly brought in as her replacement.

The result was predictable: Whitmore had ties to the show through her husband Iain Stirling, Love Island’s enduring voiceover, and she had Flack’s approval. 

By the time Whitmore quit Love Island, personally I thought ITV2 had missed the boat – Jama was surely too big for it now. To my surprise, though, Jama was thrilled to take the reins.

It’s somewhat admirable that Jama didn’t know her worth when she signed up for Love Island. 

Not to discredit the show or its position as one of the channel’s most important brands, but even then it was clear Jama was destined for astronomical opportunities – ones I’d go as far as saying British television can’t provide.

So what should she do next? She has already conquered the biggest show British television has to offer, her star has never been brighter and that’s nothing to do with her ability to tell islanders what’s going on in Casa Amor.

Celebrity Traitors proved she is fiercely intelligent and has a natural warmth, and what she often lacked in strategy (recruiting James Acaster was a diabolical decision) she more than made up for with her deception, putting some seasoned actors to shame.

Earlier this year, she shocked viewers as a credible talent in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, one of Netflix’s biggest shows of the last decade, packed with Hollywood star power.

She stars as the intellectual, gun-wielding, morally ambiguous wife of a gangster. 

It was her first scripted acting experience and not only does she hold her own, it’s clearly where she’s best placed. 

That’s been so apparent even as she’s continued to present more modest shows like BBC Three’s Glow Up. Even appearing as a judge on Saturday night blockbuster The Masked Singer has felt beneath her.

Jama has been held back by Love Island when she should have spent the last four years aiming so much higher.

It’s only been two months since her acting debut was unleashed onto streaming and already there are murmurs she’s being lined up as a Bond girl. 

Had she still been presenting Love Island, the suggestion would have been absurd – but I’ve never felt there is an ambition beyond her reach, and now we’re seeing I was bang on.

I can barely think of anyone who ticks more boxes for a Bond girl than Jama – she has the smart, the glamour, and the sex appeal; The Gentlemen showing that she is capable of so much more than British reality television can offer.

If anything, British television has held Jama back for too long. I can’t even imagine what offers are on the table after Celebrity Traitors, but I hope she truly accepts her worth now in a way that maybe she didn’t four years ago.

Unless Claudia Winkleman announces she’s leaving Traitors, the BBC fires its Strictly presenters before their first series is over or Ant and Dec suddenly quit I’m A Celebrity, I don’t even know if there is a single job on the small screen big enough for Jama’s next step.

If 2026 was the year that pushed Jama out of her comfort zone and lined up an extraordinary career beyond the television she’s presented before, then 2027 needs to be the year she runs away with it. 

If she’s walking a red carpet, it needs to be the Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty or the Met Gala at the very least.

If she’s going to present anything, it needs to be so far away from Love Island she needs gloves, not suntan lotion. 

It needs the credibility of Traitors and it needs to be a genuinely worthy rival to it which, as we’ve seen from the countless attempts to recreate its success and magic, is essentially an impossible ask.

And, more importantly, it needs to be global. Netflix clearly adores her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s hatched a plan to launch her across the world via acting or whatever else it’s got in the works.

Jama has us in the palm of her hand now. She should choose her next move more carefully than she ever has before, then go all guns blazing for the opportunities British TV just can’t provide.

However big she is dreaming, I promise she can go even bigger. 

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