Coupling Up

🎙️ Q&A Script for Coupling Up

Hi, I’m Jo Lyons author of several must-have, hilariously funny, unputdownable, best debut novel series of all time (Goodreads’ words not mine), five-star, award-winning romantic comedies. And I’m talking today to my fabulous niece, Gabby Jeffery, who inspired me to write my brand-new, fake-dating novel Coupling Up by very kindly going on the hit TV show Love Island.

Me:
Firstly, thank you so much for sharing your Love Island experience with me and my millions of readers. As you can imagine, some of them will be as nosy as me and keen to find out what goes on behind the scenes of this iconic show. So, before you went into the villa… what did you think Love Island would be like?

Gabby:
I honestly thought there would be more freedom. Like, you could just speak to whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted. That definitely was NOT the case. If I got up off the bench to go talk to someone, the tannoy would go off — what we called the “voice of God” — telling us to stay where we were: ‘Islanders do not move’, ‘Islanders stop talking’, ‘Islanders sit back down’

🎬 CLIP:
“If I got up to speak to someone, the ‘voice of God’ would boom out over the tannoy telling us to sit back down.”

Me:
That is wild. When was the first moment you realised, “Oh wow… this isn’t how it looks on TV”?

Gabby:
Honestly? Within the first five minutes of walking into Casa Amor. We sat down with the boys and they were told to ask how we were. And because they weren’t enthusiastic enough, they had to redo it. Three times! Hahaha. That’s when I thought — right. This is structured. This is a proper TV show.

🎬 CLIP:
“They had to ask how we were three times because the reaction wasn’t enthusiastic enough.”

Behind-the-scenes

Me:

What surprised you most about how structured your days were?

Gabby:

How many filming breaks there were. Every hour or so we’d break for half an hour. And I was surprised at how many producers would be running around and taking islanders aside to ‘speak’ to them. So, after we were filming in Casa Amor, the crew would go over to the main villa to film them while we had a break.

Me:
I was really shocked at the time by some of the house rules so obviously I made sure to weave them into the storyline. But how did you find them?

Gabby:
Well, your phones are taken off you — which you’d expect — but that means you have no sense of time. None. The oven clock, the microwave, everything showed different times. We never knew what time it was. Ever.

Me:
That’s psychological warfare hahaha. How confusing!

Gabby:
It felt like it! Some nights felt like 3am but you had no idea. And if you woke up early? You had to lie there until everyone was filmed “waking up” together. If you tried to get up, the voice of God would tell you to get back into bed.

🎬 CLIP:
“We had to lie in bed pretending to be asleep until they filmed us all ‘waking up’ together.”

Me:
You never really see islanders eating. Is that done off camera?

Gabby:
Yeah. Boys and girls ate separately. Dinner was set times. Breakfast you could cook yourself. But sometimes, because of say filming the firepit at 4am we’d go to bed afterwards and because it was daytime you’d get a full plate of pasta minutes after waking up - the timing was so weird.

🎬 CLIP:
“Some days we’d get a plate of pasta minutes after waking up.”

Me:
Without naming names… is the edit unfair?

Gabby:
Not unfair exactly. But it can cut out what’s really happening. I watched back a conversation I had with Scott once and they’d added cricket noises to make it look awkward and boring — but in real life we were crying with laughter and getting on really well. A lot of the time spent hanging out, playing games like football and doing gym sessions where you see islanders building relationships and having a laugh are cut.

Me:

Are there moments where you want to talk about something but are told you can’t?

Gabby: Not really, you can talk about whatever you want and they just cut it out if it’s not interesting. Before you go in, they get you to record certain words and vowels so they can string a sentence or alter it if they need to in post.

🎬 CLIP:
“They added cricket noises to make it look awkward — but we were actually crying with laughter.”

Me:
In the book, I had lots of fun portraying the director as a real tyrant. How much control do you actually have over your narrative?

Gabby:
Honestly? None. The narrative is built around your top three picks of who you fancy that day. And each day it can change.

🎬 CLIP:
“You don’t control your narrative. It’s built around your top three picks.”

The Emotional Reality

Me:

I love writing about friendship and was keen to develop that with the characters. Are there friendships or moments that felt huge in real life but never made it to screen?

Gabby:

There was a girl we went in with who was great friends with an islander but because it wasn’t a romantic attraction she basically didn’t get any airtime on screen at all. It looked almost as though she wasn’t even on the show!

Me:
Islanders go on ‘dates’ which were great fun to write. But what does ‘dating’ feel like when you’re cut off from the outside world?

Gabby:
Everything’s magnified. An hour feels like a day. A day feels like a week. It’s like being inside a bubble. I understand why people cry in there now.

🎬 CLIP:
“An hour feels like a day. A day feels like a week.”

Me:
Does it ever feel more like a social experiment than a dating show?

Gabby:
The whole thing is a social experiment!

🎬 CLIP:
“It’s not just a dating show. It’s a full social experiment.”

Me:
Some of the games they have you do are quite steamy and I don’t think I exaggerated those in the book at all. Were there any that you enjoyed?

Gabby:
We had a funny spin-the-bottle game that ended with me switching from one guy to another after a kiss. But they cut the entire thing — so in the edit it just looked like I randomly changed my mind and his comment about us sharing a second kiss then made no sense!

🎬 CLIP:
“They cut the entire spin-the-bottle game — so it looked like I switched guys for no reason.”

Me:
Was there any part of filming that you didn’t like?

Gabby:
Keeping your mic on to go to the toilet.

Me:

Yep. Disgusting. I totally put that in the book!

🎬 CLIP:
“You have to keep your mic on to go to the toilet.”

Me:
When I said I was using your experience as inspiration for Coupling Up, what did you think?

Gabby:
I loved the idea. No one’s really done that before. And loads of people love Love Island — so mixing that with a rom-com? Perfect.

Me:
What did I wildly exaggerate?

Gabby:
You wildly exaggerated finding true love! Hahaha.

Me:

Yeah, well, that is kind of my job 😊 But as your doting aunty I was secretly gutted you didn’t find your Mr Right on the show.

🎬 CLIP:
“You wildly exaggerated finding true love!”

Me:
If your Love Island experience were a rom-com… what would be the tagline?

True love can be impossible to find… that’s why we need book boyfriends - hahahaha

🔥 Top clips

1. 🥇 “They had to redo asking ‘how we were’ three times.”

2. 🥈 “We had to lie in bed pretending to be asleep.”

3. 🥉 “They added cricket noises to make it awkward.”

4. 🎤 “You don’t control your narrative.”

5. 🚽 “You keep your mic on to go to the toilet.”

Gabby has recently left Pretty Little Thing to set up her own PR and Content Creation company working with established brands such as Disney, JD Sports, Tequila Rose and a wide range of hair and beauty companies. You can follow her on

Instagram: @gabbyjefferyy

TikTok: @gabbyjefferyy