Love Island USA season 5 winners Hannah and Marco on their connection: 'It was right away'
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Sara Mally/PEACOCK
Love Island USA season 5 has crowned its winners!
Hannah Wright and Marco Donatelli coupled up soon after she arrived in the villa, and it didn't take long for the duo's connection to grow. The couple stayed strong all the way to the finale, even with bumps in the road like Marco's ex (also named Hannah) showing up.
We caught up with the winners about when they knew they'd found their person, quirks of the villa, and more.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Congrats! How does it feel to have won this season of Love Island USA?
HANNAH WRIGHT: Thank you so much! It feels great. We have to pinch ourselves, like "We won. People voted for us." It's wild. There's just been so much love and support.
MARCO DONATELLI: If I said I expected not to win, I'd be lying because I'm super competitive. I always want to win, but you never know until it happens. The whole experience feels like a fever dream, but it was amazing. We didn't think about winning Love Island or winning money, we just thought about establishing our connection and a relationship that we can take into the real world.
You seemed like a solid couple throughout, so do you both remember when you knew you'd found your person in the villa?
MARCO: For me, it was right away. As soon as she walked in through the hideaway. 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---. I knew she was the one I was going for. For her, it was definitely a process.
HANNAH: I knew he was my person when I felt like he opened up to me about his past. I know that's not easy to do, but we're very similar in so many aspects of what we've been through in life. I love how much life experience he has. Then he told me that he wanted to decorate a Christmas tree with me and I thought that was really cute and wholesome.
Was there anything you disagreed on or differences you had to work through as you got to know each other?
HANNAH: The hardest thing for me at first was having to communicate how I was feeling. 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.
Sara Mally/PEACOCK Hannah Wright, Marco Donatelli
What is something about life in the Love Island USA villa that you think would surprise viewers?
MARCO: It was definitely a blessing to have food magically appear when we needed it. The magical pantry is what we called it, and we were able to cook when we wanted.
HANNAH: Something people might not know is we eat so much in there.
MARCO: We went through five pounds of bacon in two hours.
HANNAH: And we don't even eat bacon like that on the outside. There was something about cooking for everyone when we were stressed, when we were anxious or bored. There was always someone in that kitchen.
MARCO: Other than that, the water was so close but yet so far. We never got to go in the ocean. I'm sure insurance wouldn't cover us in a random ocean, so I understand why we weren't allowed to go in. We were 20 yards away and never could touch it.
Love Island is a show that focuses on romance, but we also saw a lot of your friendship with Bergie. Hannah, can you talk about the bond you built with him there?
HANNAH: Me and Bergie just clicked from the jump. We always saw things very similarly in the villa. If something happened in the villa, we'd peep it and feel the same way. We'd have our chats all the time and it's interesting because we're from very different walks of life but we have similar personalities. I've never had a guy best friend to be honest, but he was really there for me always. It's good to have a guy in your corner as a platonic friend. Even in Casa I always said that I don't know what's going on with Marco, but I have Bergie in there. If I didn't have him, then my experience would have been completely different. I'm really blessed to have him.
What's one thing you wish you would have known about being on reality TV before you signed up?
MARCO: I would say the marathon of a process to even get to the point of making an appearance. I thought it was just filling out some things, doing a video call, but it's completely different. You need to show who you truly are. You gotta be able to dance — you really gotta be a person of interest. A lot of people would say that anyone could do it, but I learned very quickly that not everyone can do what is required to be on the show. [My process] was over six months. I don't know about you.
HANNAH: Mine was longer. It was before December then I got more interest in February. We're all very diverse in our personalities, so that's why the show was a hit this season. You could relate to me, Marco, Kassy, Leo. We were all very relatable in our own ways. That's really special because we want to reflect the USA and we definitely did that this season.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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