“This is the first time I’ve had time for myself.”
Greg O’Shea is hungry.
But not in the way that your average Love Island winner might be.
Since emerging victorious from this summer’s instalment of the series – after an impressively short 14 days inside, nonetheless – he’s had a lot on his plate. And despite his penchant for a chicken and pepperoni pizza, not all of it has been food.
“It’s been busy,” he says, “but everyone’s been busy.”
“There was 36 people in there and you can’t be close with 35 people, but me and a few of the lads would keep in contact. But it is tough not seeing them, because I lived with them 24/7, in each other’s pockets.
“For the viewers, it was only two weeks, but it felt like two years.”
Greg entered the villa on Day 44. The final islander to arrive on the show, history would suggest that he’d make little impact. Like all the last-ins of previous series, he was expected to make a splash, cause some vague drama, and eventually be dumped after failing to couple up in an already settled and rigid villa.
But on Day 58, he and Amber shocked everybody by winning the entire show.
Suddenly, he was the victor of the most popular reality TV programme of the year. He was over one million followers up. He was, in some respects, the most well-liked guy in the country. At least for a while.
“I had no idea what was going on,” he says. “Obviously I’d watched the first six weeks, but I didn’t know how I was personally getting on, whether [the public] liked me or not.”
Speaking at the launch of the Just Eat National Takeaway Awards, Greg says that he and Amber only realised how popular they were once they had actually won the show.
“[It was] literally on the day of the final,” he says. “So it was crazy.”
“But for two days they keep you in another villa afterwards, where they give you courses on fame and dealing with negative, positive [press], the whole lot. They give you back your phone after that – and it just erupted.”
2,000 Instagram followers had become 1.5 million. Greg and Amber’s every move was watched on social media. A breakup that in the real world would have been quite inconsequential and almost expected, became the talking point of WhatsApp groups and office kitchens everywhere.
A Late Late Show appearance, that was initially supposed to feature them both, allowed Greg to share his side of the story after Amber pulled out last minute.
And despite the entirely understandable, and really quite universal, reasons for their breakup, the public ate up every last morsel of what had somehow become the split of the year.
“We were always very realistic,” says Greg. “That’s why we never officially became boyfriend and girlfriend, and I think people forget that fact.”
“[Before] The Late Late Show, we chatted a bit and we’d always talked about the actual situation and what was happening.”
“We decided to focus on our careers instead. It was too hard, we’d seen each other once over five or six weeks, so we called it around then. We haven’t spoken since, unfortunately, because she’s a great girl. But she’s smashing it, she’s got her MissPap deal and all that stuff going on.”
So has Greg, but right now – for the first time since he was 13 – none of it is relationship related.
“I only realised that after a couple of weeks out of the villa. I was like: man, I’ve been in a relationship for so long,” he says. “It was two different girls, one was a five year relationship, one was a four year relationship, both amazing girls.”
“But this is the first time I’ve had time for myself.”
“I’m at a junction in my life, and I’m really focusing on that. I’m not saying I’m closed off to finding a girl, I’m definitely open to it if a lovely one comes along, we can see if that works. But now it’s just me, myself, and I.”
Greg is more than aware that the direction he has taken since Love Island has been sort of unconventional for the typical islander.
Before the show, he was a 7’s player and law student. Now, he has plans to pursue both of those facets, while also going down a post-villa route that he says some people might find a bit “weird.”
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“What I want to do now is use my profile to do something good, so I’ve kind of gone a bit against the grain of what a normal islander would do,” he says.
“I did get approached by different [clothing brands], but they just didn’t really fit with me as a person.
“There’s a lot of obligations with brands, you’ve to do a lot of things for them, and that didn’t really fit with my schedule. My main thing is my rugby, and my law down the line.”
But there’s also his recent business venture with best friend Jordan Conroy, who recently launched his own fully sustainable clothing brand, Too Politically Correct, as well as Greg’s new campaign with Alzheimer’s Ireland following the passing of his grandmother while he was in the villa.
“I’m at the age now where I can really invest in myself (…) so I’m kind of taking that time because I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he says. “I don’t really know where I’m going to go.”
“[But] I’m happy with what I’m doing. It might be a bit different and weird, but I’m happy.”
You can find out more about the Just Eat National Takeaway Awards and back your favourite takeaway here.
