Love Island fans have just found out that Molly-Mae Hague and Maura Higgins knew each other before entering the villa.

Molly-Mae, 23, who is now the Creative Director behind Pretty Little Thing, recently opened up about how she met 31-year-old Maura for the first time.

Both women appeared on the 2019 series of the hit ITV dating show where they arrived as "bombshells" at different points in the series.

Recording a new vlog on YouTube in Dubai, Molly-Mae revealed that she was sitting in the same beach club where the pair met.

Molly-Mae reveals how she met Love Island star Maura Higgins

Sitting on a lounger in the Cove Beach Club, she said: "Fun fact, this is the beach club in which I first saw Maura before we even knew who each other were.

"Then when she came on the show [Love Island] I was like 'I recognise you. I saw you at Cove Beach Club' and she was like: 'Oh my gosh, I saw you too! I recognise you as well'.

"And the rest is history really. But that was about four years ago now."

Molly-Mae was coupled up with Tyson Fury's brother Tommy during the series and are still together since leaving the programme.

But fans will remember a time when things didn't look so certain for the couple when Maura's arrival put their new relationship to the test just a few days into their time in the villa. 

Writing in her recently published memoir 'Becoming Molly-Mae', she reflected on the time when her now best friend was her love rival.

The 23-year-old wrote: "Of course on Love Island she was interested in Tommy for a bit, but there is no issue there.

"After Tommy started getting closer with me, she said to me: 'Look, I'll never go near him again in that way, you know', and ever since then we've been best friends."

Maura coupled up with dancer and choreographer Curtis Pritchard but after the pair split she also dated fellow islander Chris Taylor.

The Irish TV personality has since dated Strictly Come Dancing pro Giovanni Pernice and is now said to be dating MK Dons footballer Connor Wickham.

Love Island has recently returned for its eighth series which you can watch on ITV2 and ITV Hub at 9 pm.

All episodes are also available the following day on BritBox.