Words: Lauren O’Neill | Photography and Creative Direction: Lewis Vorn | Makeup: Grace Ellington | Hair: Francesc Cardona | Styling: Neesha Champaneria

Shakira Khan has an exclusive interview in our December issue! Buy the 2025 print anthology zine here.

Shakira Khan Polyester Love Island interview 2025 — Shakira Khan isn’t your average reality star. Along with her co-contestants Yasmin Pettet and Toni Laites, this summer the 23-year-old from Burnley broke the Love Island mould, their one-liners and sharp observations about villa life (“If I speak, I am in big trouble,” said Shakira at one point of the relationship between two of her fellow Islanders) winning more hearts and minds than Princess Diana in her prime.
Since emerging from the show after coming second, Shakira has taken to life on social media like a natural, sharing everything from her unexpected music taste (she’s an Oklou girlie) to her down-to-earth pyjama party birthday celebrations - a far cry from the usual influencer-at-the-Shard vibe we’re used to from Love Islanders. We sat down with her to hear about what happens behind the scenes on the UK’s biggest reality show, plus her past as a kids’ party performer, and South Asian representation on TV and online.

Polyester: Hi Shakira! I know you have been a performer since you were young - how did you kind of get into that?

Shakira Khan: I was obsessed with High School Musical, Victorious. Just Disney Channel in general, these were the shows that I grew up on. So I was like, “I want to do this”... and then I quickly realized I couldn't sing. But we loved X Factor, Britain's Got Talent. They were all going platinum in my household.

At my school, there was a drama club and it got cancelled because no one went to it. So, my mum and dad found a local youth theater and we started going there, and that was such a good outlet, and we ended up just becoming part of the furniture at the youth theatre. It was just so good to have something outside of school. Like you are put in an environment where you haven't got loads of friends, you know it teaches you that you've got to have that confidence. We did shows, and it just carried on ‘til high school. We did Oliver, Grease, Bugsy Malone. So, yeah, I just always had a passion for it. And then I realised, “Oh, maybe I can make a living off it!” and I started doing my princess performing.

Tell me more about that!

My first job was at a place called It’s My Party - this is an immersive experience. They basically took their inspiration from Disneyland and they created a venue. So it's like an enchanted kingdom. It’s unreal, and they were the first to ever do it - my bosses are now senior vice presidents at Paramount.

They created something that was really, really magical. It was very cool to be part of their baby. So yeah, it was great. And then from that, I went to work for a different company where it’s like mobile parties, the ones that you'll see on social media where you go to someone's house or their venue. But the first job was really theatrical. It was performance. There was a storyline, and the birthday child became a part of the narrative. It was amazing. It was like live theatre.

Could you tell me a bit about how you came to do Love Island?

I started applying and then it's like, you have to make a video. I thought, “Oh fuck that.” I just didn't get round to it because the application is so long. No one tells you how long the application is, it’s like pages and pages and pages of information about yourself. And you have to give really detailed responses. So I’d done all of that and it took me like three days to do it, and I was like, “Can I even be arsed for this?” And then I got to the video and I was like, “That's my final straw, I'm not doing this.” So anyway, my friend Lauren went to an ITV event, and Mike Spencer was there, who is one of the big dogs at Lifted Entertainment and she said, “Are you still casting for Love Island?” And this was in May, not of this year, the year before. He said yes, and they called me, and the day after I went down to London. So I did everything really quickly - normally you do a call, then a Zoom call, then you have another phone call and you go to London. So I just passed everything because it was so late in the process. I went straight down to London to meet the casting producers, and they basically told me then and there that they were casting for late bombshells and Casa Amor.

And I just said to them, “To be honest, if I was ever going to do Love Island, it would have to be the first week or nothing. Because I have such a steady career and I’ve really worked my way up.” It's a big risk, but it was always something I wanted to do. I was obsessed with the show since I was 13 or 14, when I shouldn’t have been watching it. I had the water bottles and everything. like, I’d definitely grown up watching the show, but then when it came round, I was like, “Oh, this is a possibility.” But I said no to that year, because if I was going to do it, I’d do it properly. And then, this year they rang me in January really early on and they were like, “Please, please apply, our execs loved you, we really want you to apply.” I went through the whole process and then yeah, I got on as an OG.

Did you have a sense of what you wanted to get out of the show?

Oh, of course. I didn’t go on Love Island to find love. Let's just say it. I've said it before. I didn't anticipate to find love, I really didn't. I thought, “This is going to be a great summer. It's going to be fun.” But what I was really looking for is a fast-track path into the world of social media. That's what I wanted to do. I've grown up on YouTube and seen how that's evolved. I just thought, “God, I would be so good at this.” I'm sure my mum and dad would have wanted me to be a doctor or the prime minister or a lawyer, but it was never what I wanted to do, and I always wanted to be creative and express myself. So, naturally, it was always, always a career move.

You kind of bucked the trend of what people thought of as a “Love Islander.” Before you did the show, were you always quite keen to just go in and be yourself and show that it could be something different?

It’s not that I was keen to, but I was always going to be myself. Because I think in a situation like this where you're being produced, or it is a TV show being edited, the only thing you have control of is how you react and how you behave and what you choose to say and what you choose to put out there. And I think I had come away from that experience and pretended to be something that I'm not, that would eat me alive. Whereas everything I've done on that show is me and how I would’ve reacted and I have not a single regret. Even in my worse moments, where I probably could have handled things a bit better, I don't regret that because that's how I felt in that moment. Because I was just being myself. So I yeah, I mean, Toni, Yasmin and I are not the typical people to go on there, but we weren’t trying to be anything but ourselves. And I hope it has opened doors because it's boring when you see the same sort of people, year in, year out.

You could go down the street and see ten mixed-race girls who look like me. But I've never had that in the media, where I can look at someone and be like ‘Oh, she looks like me’. It makes me feel happy that people can see me and go and say to their mums like, ‘I want to do what she's doing,’ and see similarities, you know.

Did you feel prepared by ITV when you went into Love Island? What was the pre-show process like?

I think they really try the best that they can to prepare you, but nothing can prepare you for it. They even had videos of ex-Islanders trying to explain what villa life would be like and life after and how they dealt with things. It was like, ‘Put filters on your comment sections’ and ‘Don't go looking for things, because if you look for it, you'll find it.” Like there was guidance, there was support, but nothing will ever prepare you for what life is going to be like after. People can tell you as much as they want, but nothing, nothing can prepare you for it.

What was it like when you got your phone back?

I didn't go on it for three hours. I was just so scared to open it, and then, when I did go on it, I was just relieved. I was sort of waiting, especially for that first week, to come across something bad, or you know, but it was just such a positive reaction. In there I didn't think I would come out to that. I was never going to change the way I was behaving because of public perception. Because again, it boils down to the fact that I'm always going to do what I want to do. But yeah, definitely thought I was coming out to a shitstorm, I’ll be honest.

What brought you towards Toni and Yas specifically? Like, why did you gel with them, do you think?

Our common ground is that we were ostracised from everyone else. And that's what it boils down to. It wasn't because we had the most in common with each other. They're completely different to my friends back at home. In the best possible way, though. I'm so grateful they’re in my life now, but would I ever have been friends with them in a real life situation? Never. We would never have been in the same room . But yeah, that's what it comes down to, we were sort of outcasts. And we bonded over that, and then we learnt to love each other because we just had that common ground, and then we started realising how many similarities we had and how we thought the same about things, and it sort of got to a point where we were all in sync.

I really hope that the show takes note and continues to cast people who break the mould a little bit.

I was speaking to one of the execs at Love Island and they said, “It's so interesting what you girls have done, because we have had people apply for the show that would never have applied before. This year, the applicants have been so different.” They've had such an influx of alternative people and nerdy people, as well as the regular people who go on Love Island - the people who're popular at school, the It Girl group. So I'm glad that people have watched it and thought, “Maybe I don't have to be that person to go on this show.”

Do you feel like you've settled into such immediate social media fame? Or has it been a bit of an adjustment?

It's been a bit of a whirlwind, and, you know, it's really hard because I'm so grateful, and I'm aware that this doesn't happen for everyone. So, so grateful for what is coming my way. But it is tricky. It's tricky and it's a lot of hard work. And I probably didn't have enough respect for influencers or content creators before, because this is the hardest I've ever worked in my life. Easily. Like yesterday I was on four hours sleep and I went to a shoot from eight til half six and then went back to my hotel and filmed content and edited. So yeah, it's a lot! But I’m so grateful. I am so excited for the year to come.

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