Love Island’s Sanam Harrinanan and Kai Fagan clarify how fame affected their funds as they reveal they’re again to working 9-5 and nonetheless store in Primark

Last year, Sanam Harrinanan and Kai Fagan made history when they won the winter series of Love Island. 

Marking the first ever non-white couple and Casa Amor bombshell to take first place, they won by a landslide, receiving a whopping 44 percent of viewer votes and clinching the £50,000 prize fund.

Yet 20 months on from their historic win, the couple revealed that they haven’t been swept up by the trappings of fame, having returned to their day jobs and turning down big money brand deals. 

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Sanam and Kai, both 26, explained why they chose to return to their jobs as a social worker and PE teacher respectively.  

Sanam shared: ‘I went to uni for five years to do something I’m very, very passionate about.

‘It didn’t feel right giving up what I’d learned, what I’d gained a passion for. Also knowing that you’re making a difference in very many young children and adopted parents’ lives is a massive sense of fulfillment.

‘I love my job and it just didn’t feel right to just walk away from it all when I work so hard. I wasn’t ready to give up.’

Sanam added: ‘There’s a perception that if you go on Love Island and then go back to work, you’ve been unsuccessful but that’s really not the case with us because we both felt so strong about our careers and our passions. It’s a case of living the best of both worlds.

‘I’m really grateful for the opportunities and experiences that Love Island has brought our way but also waking up every single morning and feeling like you’re actually being impactful in some way. 

‘We both work directly with children and the fact we can do that makes us feel like we’re making a difference in our world. That’s what’s important to me.’

Kai revealed he felt the same about teaching, explaining: ‘I really enjoyed it and even before I went in the villa and was doing all the interviews and discussing my work I was always adamant that I really like teaching.

‘I wasn’t on the show for a career change. I was going on there for the experience and for the opportunity to meet somebody.

‘You come out and you have all these opportunities. The opportunities are still amazing. But what I really wanted to do is go back into education in some sort of capacity.

‘Working in education is something that made me happy going in – speaking to the students, helping and guiding them through their lives.

‘Having a direct impact and knowing that every single day you’re waking up and looking at somebody and thinking, I’m actually making a little bit of a difference here.

‘That’s what gets me up in the morning. That’s what makes me happy.’

While Kai was adamant he’d return to teaching, he admitted he was ‘anxious’ about getting back in the classroom after his students had watched him on the show.  

He explained: ‘I was really scared at first because obviously when you go on a show as big as Love Island, everybody already has a perception of you.

‘You don’t really get an opportunity to make a first impression because everybody’s already got an impression. Luckily for me, the first impression that they already had of me was quite positive.

‘The students loved it. Now, I go to my classroom and the students, they don’t really talk to me about Love Island, they talk to me about my life.

‘They ask me about the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had and they’re really excited because now they’ve got access through me to things that they enjoy.’

Sanam revealed her reception at work has also been positive, sharing: ‘I suppose nothing’s really changed, even when I’ve met the young people and some of their parents who would have watched it when I was on.

‘One thing I was very, very mindful about when I went on the show was how I was going to portray myself. I wasn’t going to be someone I’m not.

‘I was very mindful of just being a social worker so naturally, I was mindful of how I portrayed myself because I want be a role model to other people. That’s not just in work, but that’s just in life.

‘I use my time in Love Island in my my job with the young people I work with, in terms of talking about how to handle different situations.’

Kai and Sanam bucked the Love Island winners trend by returning to their day jobs, with many others choosing to work as influencers. 

Their series was the first one that saw ITV implement a social media ban for islanders, who had to let their Instagrams lie dormant until they were out of the villa. 

This was done to prevent trolling and to protect the family members who usually run the islanders’ accounts.

Yet in turn, it also meant the islanders received less followers and therefore became less valuable to brands looking for advertising. 

Despite this, Kai and Sanam revealed they’ve turned down several deals. 

Kai explained: ‘There was a fashion one I turned down because the requirements for it was so much, but it was basically going to take over my whole social media so it wasn’t going to be me.

‘You had to like post like three times a week, do reels, basically just churning out that concept of this fashion brand, 

‘With the amount of content that I’d have to make I couldn’t be myself in my own platform.’

Sanam agreed: ‘I would rather work with a brand for a lower pay and it be 100 percent me than get a six figure deal and have to be sort of unhappy about if.’

The pair were also lucky that they had the £50,000 prize fund to help them, with the islanders having to quit their jobs in order to commit to the potential months-long time in the villa. 

Kai shared: ‘When you come off Love Island you don’t have jobs, you don’t have any deals. You’ve spent 10 weeks on a show where you’re getting £300 a week. I was just paying for my bills.

‘It’s less than salary that you would get and you’re not guaranteed an income for a while after getting out. Then when you do get a job it can take two to three months for those payments as well.

‘But we were comfortable, when we came off the show, we got that prize money pretty quick so we weren’t stressed and we weren’t worried about anything which was really good.’

The duo weren’t tempted to splurge their newfound money either, instead using it to help them buy a place together. The pair also donated a sizeable amount to charity. 

‘Since winning Love Island I’ve not bought anything extravagant or expensive,’ Kai shared. ‘I’ve not bought any designer clothes or anything.

‘It’s mad because when I was younger I used to be quite materialistic. I’d go out and  spend £500 pound on a T-shirt. But as I’ve got older I’ll happily go shop at Primark.

‘I’ll wear a £10 T-shirt and still feel a million pounds in. As long as I look smart, clean and neat I don’t mind. Materialism doesn’t matter to me anymore.’ 

Sanam added: ‘I have always been a saver. The money we had was helpful in terms of me and Kai moved in together. It was also going towards my family and supporting my mum. 

‘I’m very much the same as Kai, I don’t do designer stuff. I’ve nothing against it but if I buy things it’s very much within high street prices.’