GLEEFULLY, Olivia Attwood asks: “Two weeks in and two weeks going strong – that’s better than some marriages, right?”
It’s been 48 hours since Olivia and her new husband, professional footballer Bradley Dack, returned from their honeymoon in Dubai, and her new reality as a Mrs suits her just fine.
“We definitely feel closer and it’s just a nice thing to say out loud – your love for each other in front of your friends and family,” smiles the former Love Island star.
“I haven’t done the paperwork yet, but I’m going to be Attwood-Dack.
“I like his name, it’s quite unique, but I can’t say goodbye to Attwood just yet!”
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Olivia’s uber-glamorous wedding, held on June 3 at the swanky Bulgari Hotel in London’s Knightsbridge, featured a bespoke £30,000 lace-sleeved bridal gown by designer Galia Lahav, 10,000 roses, a 10-tier cake, custom Bulgari underwear and tattoos on tap for the 80 guests, carried out by celebrity tattoo artist Pablo Gutierrez.
The whole thing reportedly set the couple back a stonking £200,000. Can she confirm the final spend?
“I couldn’t possibly, as I’d vomit,” says a sheepish Olivia, before shifting responsibility for the blow-out nuptials on to her Blackburn Rovers midfielder husband.
“Girls get a reputation for being the ones who want a big wedding, but I’m telling you, it’s the guy!
“I definitely hit a point when I was getting snowed under by wedding admin and would have happily eloped, but now that I’ve done it, I’m glad that we didn’t do that.”
Photographed in Dubai for their honeymoon, the couple were spotted lying intertwined on the deck of a luxury yacht, locking lips and limbs – a PDA-packed display of love and sizzling sexual chemistry.
“We’re just really happy and mushy,” smiles Olivia, 32.
“We both have high sex drives and we’ve always been a passionate couple, but those things go in peaks and troughs.
“Sometimes we might not see each other for two or three weeks when I’m filming and he’s away with football, and there wasn’t much sex pre-wedding, because I was too busy stressing out about things like flowers and other s**t like that.”
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So what, ahem, went down on their wedding night, once the pre-marriage stress had vanished?
“Does anyone have sex on their wedding night? I was comatose, honestly!
“The wedding day was full of adrenalin and nerves, then at midnight all that anticipation left my body and I couldn’t keep my eyes open!
“The hotel could have blown up and I wouldn’t have flinched!”
And Olivia insists there are no plans for babies just yet.
“Right now, I’m in love with Brad, and my job and my life are so full. It’s not that I don’t like children and don’t want children, I 100% do, but my career is my baby.
“I’m making strides in television that I don’t think anyone thought was possible.
“I want to stay on that path, enjoy my new husband and value the freedom that we have.
“Children are in our future, but right now my mind is on other things.”
Accepting everything about one another, both good and bad, and being authentically themselves is, Olivia believes, their relationship’s biggest strength.
“With every other boyfriend, I always felt like I was making myself a little bit smaller or quieter.
“When I was younger, I thought that love meant that you had to be fighting, having sex and making up, and that it had to be dramatic for it to be love.”
Despite that, before the wedding she admitted to feeling panicked about being a one-man woman forever more.
“Those thoughts went through my head,” says Olivia, who dressed in black lace on her hen do in Ibiza, which reportedly cost £50,000, to mourn her single life.
“I asked Brad if he’d had those thoughts too. I was like: ‘If this all goes well, it’s just us forever. Does it scare you?’ He was like: ‘No, but it obviously scares you!’
“It sounds scary, but I wouldn’t want anyone else. The idea makes me feel sick!”
Olivia and Bradley, 29, met at a London nightclub in 2015, and dated on and off before Olivia’s successful stint on the 2017 series of Love Island, where she found love with Chris Hughes.
The Love Islanders split in February 2018, seven months after finishing in third place, and Olivia promptly reunited with Bradley, who popped the question in October 2019 while on a romantic holiday in Dubai.
After growing up in Surrey with her glam mum Jennifer, who she adoringly calls a “full-time icon”, her dad Kai, and siblings Georgia, 30, and Max, 23, she studied drama and performing arts at college, before realising she “was too wild to fit into the structure of the actual academic side”.
Jobs in a hairdresser’s, on reception at a beauty salon and travelling the globe as a motorsport grid girl followed, before she applied to be on Love Island.
But it was landing presenting stints on MTV after returning home from Mallorca that helped Olivia realise her calling was in front of a rolling camera.
“I never felt I was good at anything, but when I made telly for the first time, I thought: ‘I’m good at this. I like it and I want to do more.’”
Olivia pledged to “work my b*****ks off” and arrive at every job “with bells on”, determined to build an industry reputation based on excellence and reliability.
And the plan worked. Claiming today to be worth more than the reported £1.2million (“I think you’ve underestimated me there! When I look at those rich lists, I think: ‘No, sorry, I’m way busier than her!’”), Olivia built her wealth by launching fashion collections – first with In The Style, then I Saw It First.
She also appeared in The Only Way Is Essex for 16 episodes, before landing her own ITV series Olivia Meets Her Match in 2020, which also stars Bradley.
She has appeared on reality shows, including E4’s Celebs Go Dating, ITV’s The Games, plus last year’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, making history as the first-ever Love Island star to join.
She was, though, forced to withdraw after 24 hours when doctors diagnosed her with anaemia.
“I felt like I was cheated out of that,” sighs Olivia, insisting she hasn’t abandoned her jungle dreams.
“I would definitely go back. I feel I owe that to the viewers, and if I can make it work, then I’d love to do it.
“But right now, that looks like it could be a struggle.”
She’s referring to confirmed TV jobs that are going to keep her busy for the rest of the year.
For starters, there’s a second series of Olivia’s ITVX Broadcast-Award-winning docu-series Getting Filthy Rich.
She is also fronting an ITV documentary about online trolling, and then there’s Perfect Body, a documentary exposing, in her words: “the good, the bad, the ugly, the trends, who’s doing what, and really getting under the bonnet” of plastic surgery, which will air later this year.
Olivia has always been honest about how she has enhanced her appearance.
Growing up in what she describes as “that era of Pamela Anderson and Jodie Marsh”, she developed “a massive boob complex”.
After a breast enlargement in 2010, aged 19, she went under the knife in 2019 to have her first set of implants replaced with a smaller size.
Then in 2021, she had a full set of porcelain veneers fitted and now has lip filler injections.
“Cosmetic surgery fascinates me and I’m very open about it, but it’s hard when you’re in this industry,” says Olivia.
“As a woman, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you lie about it, then it’s obvious you’ve had something done and everyone gets on you.
“But if you say you’ve had Botox, people call you pathetic and a bad influence.
“When I [have lip filler], I do it because I want to, not because I hate myself or I feel ugly.
“That’s a ride to nowhere, because you’re going to keep going back for more and more and more.
“I want to warn young women that if they’re entertaining surgery to slow down and do your research.
“Take a breath. It’s surgery. It’s serious.”
Pre-wedding, size-8 Olivia combined non-invasive treatments with gym workouts.
“As well as NuEra radio frequency bum-lift sessions, she began weightlifting to boost the size of her booty.
“I was like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the gym every day. I was lifting weights, drinking eggs and eating protein,” she says.
“I grew a really decent bum, and my back and arms got so muscular that when I tried on my dress, my seamstress couldn’t do the back up!
“I like being strong and feeling strong. Everyone feels healthier and better when you’ve got more muscle.”
Exercising is one way Olivia manages the ADHD she was diagnosed with in her early 20s, after years of struggling with anxiety and depression.
She says her conditions were linked to her undiagnosed ADHD, and she no longer needs to take medication for them.
“If I manage my ADHD – keeping my routine, exercising, eating healthily and not overdoing caffeine and alcohol – then I don’t have any problems.
“With ADHD, you have to find a way to minimise the noise, which is hard.
“We’ve always got devices and we’re always trying to do a million things a day, but in the last couple of years, I’ve learned about single-tasking.
“If you’re brushing your teeth, don’t scroll your phone. If you’re in the bath, don’t have your iPad on.
“If you’re at a dinner with someone, don’t try to text someone else. When I do that, I’m good.”
Although she’s scoffing a post-shoot McDonald’s as we chat – “I can be an honest ambassador for that brand!” – Olivia notes that she and Bradley mostly “eat a lot of real food and not as much processed crap”.
She also keeps a lid on her caffeine and sugar intake, which can exacerbate her ADHD symptoms.
As for alcohol, Olivia says partying is no longer the main priority it was after she left the Love Island villa.
“People message me saying: ‘You never party any more,’ and I’m like: ‘No, I absolutely do. I just do it a hell of a lot less.’
“I have so many goals I want to achieve. I can’t host a show and go to interview people who are going to tell me their most vulnerable secrets and be hungover. That’s just not cool.”
But what’s it like sharing her most vulnerable secrets with the world?
Has filming reality television ever felt too exposing – and would she halt filming to protect her own mental wellbeing?
“My own happiness and wellbeing always comes first, and my team always prioritises that.
“But the moments you want to tell the team not to film are the moments that you really should.
“If you tell them to stop rolling at every uncomfortable moment, you’re never going to give a really organic, honest show. That’s what makes it authentic.”
This fierce dedication to telling her no-holds-barred story is one reason Olivia has climbed the TV ladder so fast, and will continue to grow her success, long after many subsequent Love Island contestants fade into viewers’ distant memories.
Which leads to one final question – what advice would Olivia give the latest batch of hopefuls in the Love Island villa, those who are gunning for love and fame on the current series?
“Don’t go in with the expectation that being on Love Island will make you rich. Walk in there and whatever happens, happens,” she says.
“Just be nice, hard-working and humble.”
Sage words, Mrs Attwood-Dack.
- Olivia Attwood: Getting Filthy Rich is on ITVX from Thursday.