Love Island All Stars: What happened between Marcel and Gabby?

Summer might feel a world away right now, but Love Island is officially back to remind us of sunnier times. The second ever series of All Stars launches tonight [13th January 2024], and is reuniting two exes - Gabby Dawn Allen and Marcel Somerville - who first met in the villa way back in 2017. But what actually happened between them, and in their relationship?

Marcel, who was once a member of the group Blazin' Squad, is 39-years-old, making him the oldest Islander in the villa this year - and that the show has actually ever seen.

Marcel got engaged to model Rebecca Vieira in 2020, and the pair welcomed a child together, a son called Roman, in 2021. They then got married in 2022, but after discovering she had been messaging someone else in March 2024, the pair filed for divorce.

According to Marcel, they are still going through the process of divorce right now, but he is single.

Gabby is 32-years-old, and worked as a personal trainer in London before heading into the Love Island villa the first time around. She now has a fitness app called Shape Up and runs fitness and wellbeing retreats, alongside influencing. She has 1million Instagram followers.

After she and Marcel broke up, Gabby was linked to Rak-Su singer Myles Stephenson between September 2018 and August 2019, while she then dated model and fitness influencer Brandon Myers for three years, until 2023.

Marcel was in the season 3 villa from day one, while Gabby entered as a bombshell in week two. They hit it off instantly, and were coupled up by day 14. They did hit a couple of bumps along the way (as is the nature of Love Island!), with Marcel kissing Shannen during Casa Amor, and the fateful lie detector test seemingly revealing that Gabby lied about loving Marcel.

Eventually they came in fourth place, losing out to Amber Davies and Kem Cetinay, who came first.

In May 2018, 10 months after leaving the villa, Marcel and Gabby announced they had split, after it emerged that Marcel had cheated on Gabby while the pair were on holiday in Mexico in February.

Gabby’s representative confirmed the news to Cosmopolitan UK at the time, while Gabby took to X (known as Twitter at the time) to write, "Thank you to everyone for your kind messages, love and support. It's been a tough couple of days, I think I might still be in a bit of shock. But I'm sure, in time, I'll be okay. I have the best family and friends around me. I'm a lucky girl."

Marcel's rep also told The Metro: "Marcel can’t really defend his actions as he knows what he did wrong and will regret it forever. Marcel is upset that he broke the heart of someone he loves and someone that he shared so many special moments with, but with all the good times there are difficult times, and sadly Marcel and Gabby had been in a bad place at this stage."

Ahead of their time in the Love Island All Stars villa, Marcel insisted there was no bad blood between the pair: "Obviously, I made my mistake, put my hands up, but after that situation we did actually bump into each other and have a conversation and talk about everything, hugged it out and it was a very amicable ending to our life."

Speaking to The Sun ahead of her time on the show, Gabby admitted she hadn't seen Marcel since 2018, but added that while it might be a bit awkward, she's hopeful they can put the past behind them.

"I haven’t seen him for six years, so I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I see him. It was a big betrayal of trust. Even though I’m over it now, it was something that happened," she said.

"I'd actually like to have a conversation with him and put it behind us and have some sort of friendship. We did go out with each other for a year and we know each other well and we had an experience with each other last time. So there’s no reason we shouldn’t take the positives from it and hopefully be mates of some sort."

Love Island All Stars is on ITV2 at 9pm.