The 5th season of Love Island: USA wrapped on August 27 and ended with Hannah Wright and Marco Donatelli crowned the winners of the hit dating show. The couple had been paired up almost since the beginning of the show and hit very few speed bumps along the way.
However, it wasn’t as smooth of a journey as it appeared on the outside as Wright opened up about her struggles with opening up to Donatelli. “The hardest thing for me at first was having to communicate how I was feeling,” Wright told Entertainment Weekly on August 30. “On the outside, if one thing bothers me, I might not talk to that person again. With Marco, I really wanted to make things work, and being forced to communicate how I was feeling was very hard for me at first.”
In fact, Donatelli revealed to the publication that while he was very sure about Wright from the beginning, it was “definitely a process” when it came to her own feelings. He said he knew “right away” that she was his person the moment she walked into the villa. As viewers will recall, Wright joined the villa on the second day as a bombshell. She and Donatelli — who coupled up with Destiny Davis on day one — coupled up at the next recoupling and remained together for the rest of the time in the villa.
“I have a type, which sounds cliche but not as cliche as people in there saying they don’t have a type, I thought that was bulls**t,” Donatelli explained about the moment he saw Wright enter the villa. “I knew she was the one I was going for. For her, it was definitely a process.” Wright said it wasn’t until Donatelli began opening up to her about his life and his past that she started seeing him as her person and that the two have similar life experiences.
It seemed for a moment that the couple might have problems during Casa Amor, as Donatelli’s ex-girlfriend from before the show entered the villa as a bombshell. Although Donatelli closed the door on her right away and said he was committed to Wright, she only knew that his ex had entered in the form of a video received by the girls at Casa Amor. The clip was just a small blip, however, and Wright didn’t let it affect her time apart from Donatelli. At the end of the twist, both islanders decided to stick with each other and went from strength to strength until the finale.