It’s the kind of spring day in New York that promises summer is right around the corner — a clear blue sky and warm sun beaming down on the bustling streets.
But if you were to step out of the Midtown crowd and enter the restaurant Tán on 49th Street, you’d feel transported to the tropics. And one early afternoon in May, that’s where you’d find reality TV star and “Love Island USA” host Ariana Madix casually curled up in a corner booth.
Over the last few years, Madix’s career has skyrocketed far beyond “Vanderpump Rules,” the Bravo show where she got her start. Now, for a photoshoot with TODAY.com, she sits beside her glam team during one of her last stops before her official “Love Island USA” summer begins oceans away.
The restaurant is a preview of the vacation vibe that awaits her after the 10-hour flight from Los Angeles to Fiji, where the hit Peacock reality television show films. Madix becoming the face of “Love Island USA” last season coincided with its rise as a cultural phenomenon, breaking viewership records and landing at the top of the streaming charts.
Returning for its seventh season on Tuesday, June 3, the series will inevitably try to recapture the “magic” of Season 6. The expectations are high to deliver an equally entertaining follow-up, but Madix doesn’t show any signs that she feels the pressure. She’s all boss mode as she poses against the lush green background in a steel gray, asymmetrical pantsuit. In between shots, she mouths the words to different hits from Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album and shows off her dance moves before sliding into a booth to chat about Season 7.
So, how will “Love Island USA” attempt to once again catch lightning in a bottle for a new season? Madix, a self-described “huge fan” of the dating franchise, doesn’t hesitate with her answer: “Completely throw out the playbook from last time.”
“I think that if we go into it trying to replicate or trying to re-create, you get stuck in a comparison mindset, and then that never gives you that freedom to be yourself, or to kind of create new moments,” she says.
On “Love Island USA,” a spinoff of the original “Love Island UK” series, singles live together in a villa for about two months and couple up with the islander they are most attracted to. Viewers become invested in couples as they watch them break up and make up whenever a new “bombshell” joins the cast. The episodes are filmed in real time and air six nights a week, and fans impact how the season unfolds by voting for their favorite islanders.
Investment in the romance between winning couple Serena Page and Kordell Beckham, the unbreakable friendship between Page, JaNa Craig and Leah Kateb (a.k.a. “PPG,” a nod to “The Powerpuff Girls”) and dramatic, memeable confrontations trended on social media all season long. That season has led to an upcoming spinoff series — “Love Island: Beyond the Villa,” arriving later this summer — which will follow multiple couples from the franchise who are still together, as well as other fan favorites.
Madix, a veteran of reality TV for more than a decade, has not yet met the cast. But she hopes they will be their most authentic selves when the cameras start rolling.
“I think that’s the magic of why last season was so amazing — because all of these cast members, everything felt so true to them,” she continues. “It never felt like they were trying to be anything else that they had seen before. So hopefully this season is the same.”
Before she became a television personality with over 3 million followers across social media platforms, Madix was an aspiring Broadway star. Raised in Melbourne, Florida by mother Tanya Madix and late father James Madix, she spent her childhood being a competitive equestrian and acting in plays. After graduating high school, she attended Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida and later made her way to New York City, according to Glamour, where she hoped to achieve her dreams. But after hostessing and bartending in the Big Apple for about five years, she relocated across the country to Los Angeles, where she eventually landed a spot on “Vanderpump Rules,” a series comprised of people in the service industry.
Madix gained fans during her time on the show, but her amount of supporters grew when viewers watched her overcome a scandal involving a past relationship. Soon, she was competing on Season 32 of “Dancing With the Stars,” placing third, and in 2024, it was announced that was taking over as host for Season 6 of “Love Island USA” following actor Sarah Hyland’s departure.
Last season, she prepared for her hosting debut by watching the islanders’ intro videos and reading their bios. Now, she’s looking forward to getting to know the new contestants and predicting who will couple up on Day 1, though she admits to being dead wrong about potential matches last year.
But that’s part of the thrill of hosting, she says. Not knowing what’s going to happen allows her to think on her feet, improvise and have a genuine reaction to the unexpected eliminations.
While the “Love Island USA” producers have surely already chosen the group of OG islanders who will enter the villa and, hopefully, deliver must-see moments (who can forget Rob Rausch’s tearful reaction to Andrea Carmona’s being dumped from the villa last year?) Madix is one of the last people on the team who will meet the contestants.
For these new islanders who are about to wander into the world of television, as a reality veteran herself, she has some advice.
“I think that last year had so many viral sayings, phrases, moments. But if they go into it trying to come up with viral phrases and sayings, it won’t work,” she cautions. “Audiences are very smart, and they can always sense and feel when things are genuine and people are being authentic. That is what’s always going to resonate with people. They can always suss out when people are being a little bit performative.”
‘Love Island USA,’ all day, every day: Madix’s life in Fiji
Leading up to the first episode, Madix and the islanders will arrive in Fiji, where a summer filled with coupling up, challenges and surprising eliminations — or “dumpings” in the “Love Island” universe — awaits.
It is a non-stop, two-month filming process, and Madix lives on the island the entire time, aside from an occasional trip back to LA to check on her various business ventures, including the Something About Her sandwich shop she co-owns with fellow former “Vanderpump Rules” star Katie Maloney.
But essentially, she will eat, sleep and breathe “Love Island USA” all summer long. She spends most of her days working out and watching the episodes, sometimes on the treadmill, just a few hours prior to one of her sporadic appearances in the villa. She receives last-minute updates about what is happening in the villa from producers before making one of her fan-beloved, slow motion grand entrances. It’s a hectic schedule that constantly changes.
Madix works with her glam team, Krystal Dawn and Carl Bembridge, as well as her stylist, Emily Men, to craft the perfect showstopping pieces, like her Season 6 gold premiere dress. (A proud Beyoncé fan, Madix practically glows as she points out that the Grammy-winner’s dancers are currently sporting the same Di Petsa design on stage for the “Cowboy Carter Tour.”) She shares that her team already has a few looks in mind for this season, and they are working on pulling together custom pieces, too.
She then spills a few more details about Season 7 that fans can look forward to, including that the villa has received “a little bit of a facelift.” She also shares which twist she wants to return this season: The islanders getting to decide whether or not they participate in Casa Amor. But she has a suggestion.
“It would be cool this year to have it be the girls that go to Casa and then see if the girls choose,” she says.
Madix says fans can also expect the return of challenges seen across the “Love Island” franchises, like “Kiss, Marry, Pie,” “Mean Tweets” and more. One “Love Island” tradition she could do without, however? The food challenge, in which the couples have to transport food items to each other using only their mouths.
“It can be fairly entertaining, but sometimes I can’t watch it,” she says.
Real love with a ‘Love Island USA’ backdrop
While helping the islanders find a summer romance, Madix will simultaneously navigate a long distance relationship with her boyfriend, Daniel Wai.
The setup is something the two have gotten used to since they started dating — she resides in Los Angeles, and he works as a fitness coach in New York City.
When asked about their relationship, Madix’s eyes sparkle, and a grin widens on face. She shares that they first met two years ago at a wedding in Oaxaca, Mexico for a friend she has known for nearly 20 years. The bride and groom also happened to be two of Wai’s closest friends.
“A lot of times when you meet somebody new, there’s not really a way to figure out, like, ‘Is this a good person or not,’ because you don’t necessarily know their friends,” she explains.
But that wasn’t a concern with Wai. Her friend painted a detailed picture of Wai, and Madix swiftly realized that he stood out from her past relationships.
“I felt like he was such a great listener and communicator,” she praises. “Even the first day that I met him, we were in a group setting all out at a bar, just all talking. It was basically a table full of women. He was kind of off to the side, but I noticed immediately that he would participate in the conversation. But he would never speak over any of the women at the table.”
She recalls, “It made me feel like, ‘Oh, wow. This is someone who really respects women and what they have to say.’ I feel like that’s not always the case when you meet guys.”
The more they got to know each other, the more she noticed Wai’s thoughtfulness and emotional intelligence. Plus, she says, they just clicked.
“It was so interesting. We are very different in some ways, but in so many ways we’re so similar. I don’t know that I’m the biggest astrology girlie, but I’m a Cancer and he’s a Taurus. I feel like right off the bat, it just felt right.”
A few minutes after gushing about him, Wai arrives on set holding a drink carrier filled with different teas. Sitting beside Madix, he explains that he bought multiple options to see which she’d like the most. “Thanks, honey!” she replies.
While Madix is away filming in Fiji, the two will have to manage the 19-hour time difference. Last year, they realized there are only a few hours each day they’re able to FaceTime. “We always make sure to hit that window and not miss it.”
Wai also plans to visit her in the tropical paradise. “Last year, he came out for a week in the beginning. This year, I think I’ve convinced him to come out for two whole weeks!” she says.
A ‘much more positive’ reality TV experience
Madix’s laidback demeanor is a clue into how she feels about the “Love Island” job: In her element. She characterizes it as a drastically different experience from “Vanderpump Rules.”
Madix joined the series in its third season and remained until Season 11, which concluded in October 2024. A month later, Bravo announced that Season 12 will feature an all-new group of SUR employees “who are as complicatedly involved with one another as their iconic predecessors,” according to a press release.
Comparing “Love Island USA” to “Vanderpump Rules,” Madix tells TODAY.com: “It’s definitely a much more positive experience. It’s me and a whole team of people getting ready for all those moments and getting excited and being hyped up. Whereas, with ‘Vanderpump,’ it’s much different. It’s your real life. Sometimes moments are really fun and great, and sometimes they’re not.”
On “Love Island,” she feels production has her back. On days she’s exhausted from traveling, the “Love Island USA” team continuously checks on her to make sure she looks and feels her best.
“(If I say) ‘Oh, I’m not feeling the way my butt looks in this,’ for example, (then it’s) OK, we won’t shoot from that angle.’ That would never happen on a show where people are just there to document the moments that you’re living. In fact, if you point it out, they might do that on purpose,” she adds with a laugh.
On “Love Island USA,” she gets to ask the questions and transform into another version of herself. She likens it to Alan Cummings’s mischievous performance as the host of “The Traitors.”
“For me, it is a little bit of playing a character, like a version of yourself that’s not necessarily what you are just walking around in real life. My ‘Love Island’ hosting persona is not me,” she says. “It is, but it’s not.”
She goes on to praise Cumming for his work on the Emmy-winning series.
“I feel like with Alan, he’s so good at bringing that character like you really believe that he’s probably living in this castle, that he owns this estate. He can be a little bit scary. He’s sassy. His outfits are so cool. He’s incredible at everything he does. So, of course, he’s an amazing host.”
Madix is a big fan of “The Traitors.” “I watched every season, of every country, until this season,” she says, referring to the US Season Three.
So would she ever want to be a contestant?
“The only time I would do ‘Traitors’ is if Alan Cumming wanted to retire. But I’d have to probably work on the Scottish accent, because I feel like that’s part of what makes it so iconic,” Madix says.
What’s next?
It seems that her days as a cast member on reality television are long behind her.
The television personality and entrepreneur, who will celebrate her 40th birthday in Fiji in June, is leaning into this new era of her life and exploring every opportunity. She finished her stint as Roxie Hart in “Chicago” on Broadway last year, and in February she appeared as herself in the ABC drama “Will Trent.”
The Renaissance woman shares that she would love to return to the Broadway stage sometime soon, possibly to tackle the role of Velma in “Chicago” next. “I went to school for theater, and that’s kind of been my life’s dream. I’ve been able to make it happen in a very roundabout way,” she says.
Her dream role would be in a revival of “Mamma Mia,” her favorite show and the first she saw on Broadway. “I always tell people, like, I could be a townsperson. It’s totally fine. I don’t have to be the lead.”
As for scripted shows? She is interested in showing off her acting skills some more, perhaps in a comedy. Her favorite series right now are “Hacks” and “The Studio.” But Madix doesn’t just want to work in front of the camera. She has aspirations of moving behind the scenes to the development side and producing a project of her own.
Whatever comes next, she knows one thing: she isn’t slowing down any time soon. “I just want to keep going.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
