They were the Posh and Becks of reality television, loved more as a pair than as separate entities.
So when Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury split last month, not only were their millions of devoted fans left in mourning, but their extremely lucrative joint brand was left in tatters, too.
Their romance had begun after meeting on ITV‘s Love Island in 2019. Runners up on the show, they were rapidly taken to the hearts of the captivated Gen Z viewers, who regarded them as a ‘fairytale family’.
As Molly, a model and beauty pageant winner, and Tommy, a professional boxer and younger brother of world champion boxer Tyson Fury, shared more and more of their seemingly envious life on social media, their fanbase grew and grew.
Along with the millions of followers came lucrative endorsement deals: Tommy became M&S‘s food ambassador, as well as picking up contracts with fashion brands like Diesel.
Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague were due to be married next year but split last month after the boxer was accused of cheating
Molly-Mae, meanwhile, was snapped up as the face and creative director (she has now stepped down from this role) of fast-fashion range PrettyLittleThing. The money came rolling in – some £9million.
Then came heartbreak. The pair, who were due to be married next year, split three weeks ago after Tommy was accused of cheating.
They both spoke of their devastation – and their fans launched an extraordinary outpouring of emotion online.
One image from Molly-Mae’s Instagram relating to the split attracted 1.2 million likes from her 8 million followers, and thousands of comments: ‘I always thought this couple were so perfect!’ wept one female fan.
Those fans can now rest easy, however – as can those companies who’ve paid good money to tap into the commercial power of the couple’s brand. (One forthcoming deal with Netflix, for example, is said to be worth a potential £1million.)
For the Mail can reveal that the pair are mending their relationship. Friends have told me that Molly-Mae and Tommy, who share 18-month-old daughter Bambi, are getting their romance back on track.
So much so that Tommy is now a regular visitor to Molly-Mae’s £4million six-bedroom Cheshire mansion where the trio lived as a family until she kicked him out last month.
Astonishingly, so successful has Molly-Mae become, that it was recently reported that she bought the pile alone, without her fiance’s help.
Friends say that they are ‘getting on really well’ and Tommy has been spending evenings with Molly-Mae.
Molly-Mae and Tommy enjoy a holiday with their daughter Bambi, who was born in 2023
One catalyst for their rekindled affection has been Bambi, the star of both Molly-Mae and Tommy’s social media platforms, who they have been co-parenting since they went their separate ways.
A source tells me they are getting ‘close again’ and getting back together is now ‘very much a reality’.
‘Molly-Mae and Tommy appear to be finding a way through their issues,’ said one friend. ‘Some close to them are even going as far as to say they are heading for a full-on reconciliation.
‘It might come as a surprise to many but, despite what might have gone on, they adore one another.
‘They as good as grew up together, they were barely 20 when they met and they have navigated the whole fame thing together. That bond and those times can never be taken from them.
‘They have had to see one another because of Bambi and that has been a good opportunity for them to have begun the process of getting back together. They’re enjoying quiet time away from the limelight.
‘Things have been so dramatic in the past three or four weeks, they just want some calm to work through their issues.’
It’s true that these few weeks, since Molly suddenly announced their split on – where else? – Instagram have been intense.
After writing her emotional revelation online – ‘Never in a million years did I think I’d ever have to write this …’ she began her statement – Molly-Mae has given a pitch-perfect window of her life as a singleton on social media.
Thanking all her ‘online friends’ for their support, she even went to a bridal shop to try on wedding dresses for a white-themed party, and spoke of her emotion that she wasn’t buying one for real.
The pair met on the dating show Love Island in 2019, finishing as the couple in second place
Undeniably, this is all absorbing online content and her non-stop publicity campaign is something Molly-Mae has undoubtedly been aided with by her manager, Francesca Britton, who has been at her side since the earliest days after she left Love Island.
There’s no denying though that the split was terrible timing for many of the couple’s joint deals. They were in negotiations for a Netflix deal thought to be worth in excess of £1 million, which would have seen Molly-Mae and Tommy following in his big brother Tyson’s footsteps (he and his wife Paris have their own vastly popular series At Home With The Furys on the streaming giant).
The plan was for their show to be a fly-on-the-wall documentary which would allow her millions of fans inside their home to see how they lived their daily lives, Bambi included.
However, plans looked to be quashed when they broke up.
‘It’s an example of just what being a brand can do for you,’ said one showbusiness insider.
Tommy is now said to be a regular visitor to Molly-Mae’s £4million six-bedroom Cheshire mansion where they lived together until she kicked him out
There’s also the matter of Tommy’s book. His autobiography – much anticipated among their fans – is due on October 9. However, as it was finished before he split from Molly-Mae, it doesn’t include any details of their separation which may put potential readers off buying it.
Tommy, apparently, is under pressure to add a chapter, but given how close the publication date is, it could be impossible.
‘You’re basically buying a book that was written while Tommy was in one of the most high profile celebrity relationships but now he isn’t,’ a source tells me.
‘Were they to be back together, surely it will help sales.’
It would have all been a high price to pay for what looked to be a truly banal act of infidelity. Within hours of Molly-Mae announcing the end of their relationship online, there were claims Tommy had cheated.
At the centre of these claims was a 20-year-old Danish jewellery assistant Milla Corfixen who met Tommy while he was on holiday with his friends in North Macedonia.
There were reports that Tommy had flirted with her and behaved ‘inappropriately’. Tommy, however, staunchly denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
As for Milla, she said: ‘ We had a great time, but nothing happened. We were talking about Molly-Mae, and talking about Bambi and how beautiful she was.
‘We were just getting to know each other – no flirting.’
Since then, Molly-Mae has been carefully balancing her social media output between the personal and the professional. Her posts have been busily teasing her fans about a new project named Maebe.
In what appears to be a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign, she had made several video blogs where she has spoken about the forthcoming project which she is set to announce tomorrow. She will begin selling her goods – thought to be clothing and accessories – from September 21.
In addition, she has been promoting her successful fake tan brand called Filter, which is thought to have added to her fortune.
In one clip she seemed to draw upon her split to raise its profile, saying: ‘It’s been bad timing with everything, but it’s also been kind of a blessing because it’s a huge distraction for me and it’s something that I can like plummet all my emotions into.
‘I’ve been non-stop working on it, near enough every single day,’ she said. ‘My heart and soul has gone into this project.’
Earlier this week, Tommy revealed he also has a ‘new and exciting’ project’ lined up for the end of the year.
Yesterday, there were reports he is in conversations to take part in ITV reality show I’m A Celeb in what would be a megabucks deal.
Perfect timing then, all in all, for a reconciliation. And who knows, maybe there will be wedding bells before long. After all, celebrity weddings can be very lucrative indeed.
The Mail approached representatives of both Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague for comment.