Laura Whitmore will replace Caroline Flack as the host of Love Island, ITV has confirmed.
Flack was charged with assault last week, after an incident involving her partner, Lewis Burton.
Whitmore will host the sixth season of the show, its first winter edition, which airs from 12 January. She will also present its companion show, Love Island: Aftersun, which airs weekly.
“To say I’m excited to be heading to Cape Town to host Love Island, the biggest show on television, is an understatement,” Whitmore said. She added that Flack, “a brilliant host and also a friend”, had supported her in taking on the role, and that she would “try and do it justice”.
It comes after Flack’s arrest last Thursday after what has been described as a private domestic incident at her home in Islington, north London. She will appear in court on 23 December.
Paul Mortimer, ITV’s head of digital channels and acquisitions,seemed to indicate that Flack might not be leaving the programme altogether.
“[Whitmore] is the best person for the job and is a popular and experienced presenter of live television. While Caroline is away, we know that Love Island will be in very safe hands,” he said.
ITV had previously stated it would remain in contact with Flack regarding the upcoming series.
The appointment of the Dublin-born presenter follows speculation about who would take over from Flack, who has hosted the reality dating contest since 2015. Rumoured replacements included the Radio 1 presenter Maya Jama and Alison Hammond of ITV’s This Morning.
Whitmore has previously presented the companion show for ITV’s I’m A Celebrity and hosts a weekly show on BBC Radio 5 Live. She has been in a relationship with Iain Stirling, who provides the show’s signature voiceover, since 2017.
Contestants on the winter series will travel to South Africa rather than Mallorca, where the show is usually filmed during the summer. Love Island achieves record viewing figures and has become a global hit, with 13 international versions broadcast outside of the UK.
