Maya Jama ‘tipped to quit Love Island’ after Celebrity Traitors – I know the perfect replacement

The Celebrity Traitors season two line-up prompted a collective inhalation of breath. It is a no-skips list of names. Even TV watchers in the US were staggered at the calibre.

This might point to my TV predilections, but one of the names that stuck in my mind after a first read was that of our anointed Love Island host, Maya Jama. 

Because if she’s heading into the Scottish castle, what does that mean for the Mallorca villa? 

It’s reportedly something ITV has been mulling on too, with fears said to have been stoked that Jama could soon walk away from her gig in sun-soaked matchmaking paradise, according to The Sun.

The broadcaster is now reportedly assembling a list of TV personalities who might be able to match Jama’s sparkling personality and high-end wardrobe (which normally reduces the Islanders to eye-popping Looney Tunes cartoons whenever she makes an appearance). 

The names already being bandied around include the (maybe warring) show alums Olivia Attwood and Maura Higgins. But Attwood already hosts another ITV dating show, while Higgins is seemingly deadset on cracking the US, with a Dancing on Ice appearance on the horizon.

In my mind, the obvious pick for who could succeed Jama’s cheeky warmth is someone on another of the biggest shows currently on air: Emily Atack.

If you’ve tuned into Rivals, you’ll have seen Atack as Sarah Stratton, who has had her fair share of TV hosting experience, albeit in the 1980s and with far more hairspray than is really in vogue now.

The 36-year-old blonde bombshell (imagine it in Iain Stirling’s voice) is probably best known for her acting career, but has already proven herself a savvy, hoot of a TV host when given the chance.

There were the years as a chaotic team captain on Celebrity Juice, which proved enough of a presenting footing for Laura Whitmore to go on to host Love Island and for Holly Willoughby to helm This Morning.

Since then, The Inbetweeners breakout has been round the houses at ITV and no doubt earned much goodwill along the way. 

She was the then-youngest contestant on Dancing on Ice at 19, did a stint in the jungle on I’m A Celebrity, which saw her finish runner-up and then hosted a raunchy two-season self-titled sketch show in 2020. That’s when you know you’ve made it, when they name a show after you.

The froth of the reality shows was countered with a searing BBC documentary in 2023, in which Atack detailed her vile experiences with online sexual harassment. If you haven’t watched it yet, do.

Atack was reportedly in the running for the Love Island job back when Jama took over from Whitmore and was ‘gutted’ to have missed out on it.

I think ITV made the right call: Jama has been a phenomenal host in a tricky time, presiding over what has been a precipitous decline in Island eyeballs (albeit one representative of the wider terrestrial viewing figures). 

But after Jama emerges from the Celebrity Traitors castle with a bit of a BBC prestige bump, I suspect she will be prepared to take on pastures new. And it might be just the time for ITV to try mixing things up again, amid many accusations that the franchise has become stale.

After four years strutting into the villa, it is probably time for a new Love Island face, regardless of what Jama decides to do post-Traitors. I think Atack has the goodwill and glamour to easily preside over the next batch of tanned singletons.

We might never see a Love Island host as brilliant as Caroline Flack. Every time our host du jour does her slow-motion walk back into the villa, I still hear Stirling’s foreboding declaration that ‘The Flack is back.’

And who would be a better successor to that than for Stirling to announce that ‘Atack is back’?

Love Island returns on ITV this summer.

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