Maya Jama: Who is Love Island 2023 host, what is Maya Jama's ethnicity, how to watch Love Island

The new season of Love Island is underway. Here is everything you need to know about presenter Maya Jama.

Love Island host Maya Jama. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images)

It feels like just last week that Kai and Sanam were walking out hand in hand as the winners of the first ever Love Island winter and the first ever Casa Amor couple to win.

And maybe that is because it really wasn’t that long ago considering it ended in March! However, it wasn’t only the popular winning couple that made a splash in the Villa with new presenter Maya Jama wowing audiences after she replaced regular host Laura Whitmore.

A host of new singletons entered the villa on June 5 in search of love and will hope to heat things up as viewers tune in to get all the drama, romance and subsequent break-ups on free-to-air channel ITV2 throughout the summer.

Who is Love Island 2023 Presenter

The latest series of Love Island is now underway and already we have been treated to drama, recoupling and bombshells, with more to come. Probably.

After Laura Whitmore stepped down from hosting duties in the winter addition of the show, she was replaced and Love Island has a new presenter for the first time since 2020.

The popular 28-year-old television host Maya Jama stepped into Whitmore shoes and was immediately welcome by audiences. The British presenter was confirmed as the new host in late 2022 and began her stint in the role on January 16.

On the announcement, Jama said “I’ve always been such a massive Love Island fan and I’m so excited to be hosting one of the nation’s favourite shows! I can’t wait to get into the villa to meet all of the islanders.”

The director of reality programming and acquisitions at ITV, Paul Mortimer was equally as delighted at the news saying: “Finding a new host to follow the wonderful Laura Whitmore was never going to be easy. In Maya Jama, though, we have another high-profile fan of the show who’ll be a great addition to the Love Island family.

“Cool, charming, and charismatic, I speak for us all when I say Maya will also bring a unique presenting style to the show, as did Laura and, of course, the very much missed Caroline Flack. We’re very pleased to have her on board.”

Who is Maya Jama, Maya Jama ethnicity

Born in Bristol in 1994, Maya Jama is of Somali and Swedish decent and has become one of the most well known presenters in the United Kingdom over the past five years.

Maya has been a resident of London since moving there as a teenager in order to pursue her career in broadcasting and originally found success with a YouTube channel she created. Her successful online videos grabbed the attention of JumpOff TV and landed her the role of presenter on the channel.

In 2017 she worked with the Brit Awards on their 2017 Pre-Brit Awards Party and hosted a Facebook live stream from the red carpet.

Her television career continued to blossom and she soon moved to MTV where she became the face of their show The Wrap Up. She later moved on to MTV Essentials, MTV News and True Love or True Lies in 2018, while she also co-hosted ITV’s Cannonball alongside Andrew Flintoff, Frankie Bridge, Radzi Chinyanganya and Ryan Hand.

Since then she has fronted various different shows, such as Copa 90’s Maya’s Fifa World Cup Cities 2014 and BBC3’s The Glow Up. Jama also found success on BBC radio where she hosted slots on Friday and Saturday evening on BBC Radio 1.

Most recently she has presented BBC One TV programme Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer, Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star and Walk The Line. In November 2019, she won the People's Choice Award for best dressed star.

Jama was reportedly named after civil rights activist and poet Maya Angelou when her mother read the popular poem I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings while pregnant and cities both Davina McCall and June Sarpong as early role models.

What time is Love Island on tonight

Each episode of the show is scheduled to begin at 9pm and will finish at approximately 10:05pm. It will then be replayed on ITV2 +1 at 10pm. Apart from Saturday nights, when the show takes a 24 hour break.

ITV has also confirmed that every episode of Love Island as well as previous seasons will be available to stream for free on ITVs on-demand streaming service, ITVX.