Section:GDN 12 PaGe:4 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 15:59 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian
  4 Wednesday 21 August 2019

‘I hope I

showed

that being

you is dope’

I n a corner offi ce in

ITV’s headquarters in central

London, the former Love Island

contestant Ovie Soko is about to be

embarrassed by his mum, Foluso.

The pair have recently been on This

Morning, cooking Eamonn Holmes’s

breakfast live on air, completing the

promotional duties of any successful

reality TV star. But now, as his dad,

Ray, quietly eats a sandwich, the dirt

is about to be dished.

“He talks about himself in the

third person,” says Foluso.

“I’ve never done that,” counters

Soko, quickly regressing from 6ft 7in

(2-metre) professional basketball

player and composed TV personality

to annoyed teenager.

“You’d come in and say: ‘What

will Ovie have for lunch today?’

Is that not the third person?” adds

Foluso, doubling down.

“I’ve never done that!” says Soko.

“I’ve said: ‘ What’s cooking?’ But

that’s diff erent.”

Ray joins in. “He’d come back

from training and say: ‘What is

Ovie having for lunch?’ ”

The son remains silen t, beaten

by a parental tag team in perfect

Ovie Soko was the

breakout star of this

year’s Love Island –

an ally of women,

with refreshingly

goof y charm. But,

as Lanre Bakare

discovers, that

doesn’t mean his

mum has stopped

checking up on him

PORTRAIT BY DAVID LEVENE/THE GUARDIAN; ITV/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

harmony. “I’ll record you and put it

on Instagram next time,” adds his

mum, for good measure.

It is rare to see Soko fl ustered.

After all, he made a name for himself

on a show where “fl ustered” has

probably been used only as a wry

sexual euphemism : Soko is the

stand out star from this year’s Love

Island , the Marmite reality TV show

in which young people with no tops

on try ostensibly to “fi nd love” and,

more accurately, “build a brand”

from which to launch lucrative

deals after fi lming ends. Soko, a

late entry to the competition (he

entered the villa in the fourth week),

arguably did both : romantic love,

possibly, with his fellow contestant

India Reynolds (who he is still in a

relationship with) ; platonic love,

defi nitely, with Amber Gill, who

eventually won the show with her

rugby player partner Greg O’Shea.

The Ovie brand, meanwhile, is a work

in progress as he considers a move

from basketball into TV or fashion.

So, what has surprised him the

most since he left the Mallorcan

hideaway at the end of July?

“The love, man,” he says. “It’s

overwhelming. It doesn’t make

sense to me.”

His newfound popularity will

not be a surprise to anyone who

watched the show. People like Soko

are rarely seen on reality TV ; he

doesn’t make sense in that context.

In fact, they are rarely seen on TV

at all. Self-assured without being

cocky, entertaining without being

overbearing, paternal without being

condescending – there was a laconic

and disarming ease to everything he

did while in the villa.

And what he did was ...

surprisingly little. The other

residents marvelled at the fact

that a 28-year-old man could make

himself breakfast. His catchphrase

(“Message!”), which he shouted after

anyone got a text, became a highlight

of every episode. The public

swooned over his goofy personality

and incredibl e array of headgear,

from a do-rag to a purple number that

looked like Gene Hackman’s porkpie

hat in The French Connection.

The attention he has received

since leaving the villa is “great”, he

says. “It makes you feel good, but at

the same time it was just me being

myself day to day. It’s wild that that

can reach so many people.”

is why Soko entered the villa in

the fi rst place. He was a successful

professional basketball player,

signed by CB Murcia in Spain’s top

division, the most respected league

outside the NBA. He had worked

towards a professional career from

the age of 13, leaving home in north

London at 16 to attend a private

school in Virginia, to which he had

won a scholarship. After three years

of university – fi rst in Alabama ,

then Pennsylvania – he missed out

in the 2014 NBA draft, although

Golden State Warriors were initially

interested in him. So why did he

put himself through a notoriously

brutal British reality show?

“On a basic level, it was my

brother,” says Soko. “ It was a passing

comment. He said: ‘Ovie, you’d be

sick on this show,’ when we were

watching it last summer.” But there

was also a need to distance himself

from the sporting world. “This

It’s important

for young black

people to know

that they can

be themselves

Part of the reason people fell in

love with him was his protective

nature. First of Gill – a loud, funny,

fi ercely loyal Geordie who went

through a crushingly harsh breakup

with this year’s pantomime villain,

Michael Griffi ths – and then of

Reynolds, whom he extricated from

an explosive argument between

fracturing couple Anna Vakili and

Jordan Hames, extending his hand

to her and leading her calmly from

the fray.

“ [ Soko] is the James Bond of the

villa, if James Bond was in touch

with his emotions and didn’t kill

people for a living,” said one Vice

article about him. Indeed, it was

his interpretation of masculinity as

something powerful and attractive

but at the same time reasonable

and unfl appable that made him

a  fan favourite.

Another thing that doesn’t make

sense in the context of reality TV

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