“B*tch, what are you reading?”
Love Island star Chloe Burrows is about as candid and open as it gets. Within minutes of her arriving at GLAMOUR HQ, we are comparing notes on how overrated matcha is. Not long after we are comparing our recent reads. She's really into dragons and romantasy, by the way. “They change your brain. I read it a year and a half ago and I've not been the same since. All I want to do is consume dragon smut.”
Sipping on an iced coffee and wearing a knit polo co-ord set by Molly Mae's Maebe, she's got the reality TV star slash girl next door look, vibe and chat nailed. She tells me she has “no rizz” – charm, social skills, charisma – but nothing could be further from the truth.
Her new documentary, Love In The Wild, sees her jump head first into the world of IRL dating, looking at society's dating app fatigue and why we now find meeting a potential partner without the protection of a digital screen so very daunting.
“Fans have become unofficial defence squads that aggressively push one version of events that favour their idol.”
From a fully-clothed, Channel 4-appropriate, PG version of “tantric speed dating” – which involved a lot of slow-dance style hugging and trust falls with strangers – to teaming up with a group of singles tasked to find someone dressed up as a chicken (a rather unique bonding exercise), Chloe becomes the Bear Grylls of dating IRL, after making her name on a quest for love in a very unreal environment, the Love Island villa.
“I feel like you can never explain how intense it was,” she says of her time making connections on the reality TV show. “There are feelings that you have for people in there, whether it's friendship or romantic, that you wouldn't get in real life, because it's so intense. It's every second of every day, there's no distractions, you don't even know what time it is. All you're thinking about is ‘she’s my best friend' and ‘I love him’. You can't replicate that."
When GLAMOUR asks if Love Island can be feminist, Chloe says that any inequalities between men and women in the villa are wider reflections of what's already there in the outside world.
“I will say it amplifies things that are [already] in general society," she says. "When these boys are messing around, they're all laughing and patting each other on the back, and when a girl's having a cheeky little snuggle in a terrace she's in trouble. But it happens every day. So, you know, it's just putting that on the stage.”
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Her time in the villa also opened her up to “taking the bull by the horns”. “My biggest lesson from going on Love Island is maybe we should all just start snogging people in games,” she says. “Sometimes it works.”
Having not used dating apps herself since before her time Love Island, and dreaming of an IRL meet cute herself, the documentary was a perfect mission for Chloe. It's a lot of fun to watch, with her signature humour and game attitude at its centre, but it also goes deep on the core reasons for our dating app fatigue.
For instance, it reports that 55% of dating app users said that they would feel empowered if they knew how dating app algorithms worked. The mystification around who we match with – as well as how it might benefit these dating apps and their business model – is eroding our trust in the process.
While she admits that she asked ChatGPT to advise her on how best to tidy her room recently, Chloe says that if dating app users were aware of the intricacies of AI used to find their matches, they would “have more, power and awareness in their decision to use it. If that's the route that you want to find love with.”
But the rise in real-life dating events, from run clubs to creating communities and new friendships people in saunas, Chloe feels comforted and encouraged that “people are trying to find meaningful connections”, with activities a natural way to break the ice.
Chloe's previous documentary, Love in the Limelight, explored a different side of love and relationships, focusing on what it's like for reality TV couples to navigate their romance in the public eye. She saw this project as an opportunity to seize the narrative that the press was creating around her. “The press loved to report on me and my single ways. And I just thought if you want to report on me, I'll give you a story to report,” she says.
Since she filmed Love In The Wild, Chloe has found love herself – decidedly not on the apps. While her mission is to keep the details of her new relationship private, she opened up on her YouTube channel about accidentally hard launching him on social media after a few drinks on holiday.
“My intention was for everyone to have absolutely no idea who this man is,” she tells GLAMOUR. “But in my most recent podcast, I said his passport name. It depends how I feel in the morning.” Chloe adds that it is a welcome shift in pace to date someone outside of the industry, “We've known each other for a while, but I love that we don't talk about anything to do with the industry… I can completely turn it off, he understands where I'm coming from.”
She adds that she won't be working with her new partner, keeping that part of her life just for her – or as much as social media and fan culture will allow her to do so. She describes fans feeling frustrated at her (totally understandable) reluctance to share details about her new romance, reflecting on whether it's “selfish” to want this privacy.
“I understand,” she says. "I share so much of my life online. It is selfish of me to want to keep him private… I understand why they get annoyed. They gave me my platform. If they want to know, they can know bits and bobs. I understand it. You meet little girls on the street and they ask for a picture and they're like, 'Oh, I was looking for your boyfriend.'”
What was the weirdest thing you tried for the Love In The Wild documentary?
The thing that stood out to me was tantric speed dating. I'm not very touchy feely anyway, so hugging and touching a stranger was intense. And then also approaching people in the street to tell them they were fit and that I was single… I've not done it since.
You described it as making you feel vulnerable and exposed, even though you were clothed…
I felt really naked. For some reason I felt like I had no clothes on and everyone in the room was just naked. We did a way more PG version of what they normally do because we were filming for Channel 4.
What do they normally do, minus the PG?
When I asked about of the blokes he said "Have you ever heard of Kama Sutra?" I was like, "Yeah." And he was like, "Wild." And I thought, what the f**k? Fair enough. I wasn't quite ready for that.
I learned about kink clubs. Loads. People were so much more forthcoming with information about themselves, their hobbies. So that was really refreshing. It was the staring at each other for a while and the trust falls. It wasn't for me, but I did try it.
You just had to break down any wall, any boundaries, straight away I was hugging a stranger. Also, you guys saw five minutes [in the documentary], I was there for two hours, just touching and rubbing. It was a lot. But what I will say is the conversations I was having with people, they were really intimate, and they were telling me way more about their lives than perhaps on a speed date. So that was good. I'm really not a hugger, a toucher, so when I was grinding to Kesha it was shocking – but don't knock it til you've tried it. I don't think I'll be going back, though.
What was the biggest lesson you learned about yourself from doing the documentary?
I learned that I am actually so reliant on being behind my screen, and I love being behind my screen, but I do think that's bad. Don't get me wrong, loads of people use dating apps and end up getting married, but if you are struggling, and you're bored of the apps, go outside.
What makes you feel empowered?
I think my biggest tool in my artillery is my mother. She raised me to just be absolutely whatever the f**k I am now. I can call her on a bad day and she just takes the edge off. Big Lou is my biggest supporter, biggest fan, biggest driver. She is the best. So anytime I'm down on myself, having a bad day, straight to Big Lou. She's got it covered.
As a reality TV star, so much of your working life is based on being ‘online’, what's your relationship with social media like?
It's like a rollercoaster, isn't it? Social media is not the same every day. So it depends what mood I'm in. I love my job, it is really freeing and I love the communities that I've built in certain pockets [of social media]. At the moment I'm into BookTok… Then I've got the gaming one, and then my Snapchat fam. It depends on the platform.
Sometimes I wake up and I don't post and that's that. And I don't have to answer to anyone. Luckily for me, I don't have a time sheet. I can just do whatever I want within reason. Normally on a Sunday, I don't post all day and then I'll get back into it in the week. I'm just not posting, I'm still spending nine hours on TikTok. Don't get me wrong.
In 2025, what would you say is your type?
Someone who is violently empathetic, someone who is caring, down to earth, ambitious. That is a big one for me. Whatever you're doing, if you've got big dreams and you're doing something, I f**king love that.
Love In The Wild: The Real Dating Experiment is available to stream on Channel 4 now.
