The Love Island USA season 6 villa may be closed, but the love stories could be just getting started.
During exclusive interviews with Us Weekly on Monday, July 22, one day after the finale started streaming on Peacock, it was confirmed Kordell and Serena, Kendall and Nicole, Leah and Miguel and JaNa and Kenny all have plans to continue their relationships outside of Fiji — and winners Kordell and Serena know what they will be doing with the $100,000 prize.
“I’m gonna be investing and putting it towards the business and my career,” Kordell, 22, told Us Weekly, noting that he wants to get into acting. “But as far as spending, I’m not gonna spend it on anything unless she wants a little something. [Serena] might get a little something.”
Serena, 27, will be “saving” her half — after she gives $4,000 to JaNa as she bet her costar that JaNa and Kenny would be the winners.
“I’m gonna hook my girl up,” Serena told Us. “I thought she was gonna win simply because I was just very unsure about how America was feeling about me and Kordell, because we haven’t had the easiest journey. Past [Love Island] winners, they may not have gone through everything we’ve gone through. It has been a lot — a little dramatic, a little crazy. I’m like, who knows? They’re either gonna love it or hate it, and I was just like, ‘Maybe they hate that s–t. I don’t know. I know some people did, but it is fine because the majority don’t.”
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Kordell argued that the pair’s uncontroversial love story resonated because they didn’t sugarcoat things when he came back from Casa Amor with another woman. “All of that was real. Real emotions, real passion, real feelings. It’s just like, ‘How can you hate it?’” he said.
The brother of NFL player Odell Beckham Jr. also reminded his partner that he made his own side bet with JaNa over whether one of the swings in the villa was a “real swing” — it’s not! — so now JaNa owes him $400.
Keep reading more for from the Love Island USA season 6 finalists:
Kordell and Serena
Both originally from Texas, Kordell is still living there while Serena resides in Los Angeles. The pair told Us that Kordell will eventually relocate to California. “I’ll be out there whenever she’s ready,” he said, with Serena noting that she still visits her family in Texas all the time. When it comes to putting the boyfriend-girlfriend label on their romance, the twosome are taking things day by day.
“I don’t think we have a strategy, like, we don’t really give strategic. We are very much [go with the] flow,” Serena told Us about next steps. “Even [the conversation about] closing things off [in the villa] was just like, ‘Yeah, so we gonna do this?’ … I feel like we’ll both just know at the right time.” Serena does have one important note for her man. “[But] when he does ask instead of, ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ I like, ‘Can I be your boyfriend?’ The wording matters.”
Kendall and Nicole
Nicole will be returning to Sacramento, which is a “three- [or] four-hour plane ride” from Kendall in Dallas. “It’s not far. It’s good that she lives in California because I have a lot of family there — my sister and my mom are in California. So it’s a win-win situation when I go there, I get to see Nicole and I also get to see my family,” Kendall told Us. “I know my family eventually wants me to move back to California so my mom, specifically, is excited that Nicole is from there.”
The twosome have also moved past their awkward finale moment where Kendall said “I love you” and Nicole hesitated.
“Kendall caught me by surprise on the date. I’m not gonna lie. Those words mean a lot to me. I just don’t say them to anybody,” she explained to Us. “I just needed a second to process it. It’s scary. I don’t know if anyone else out there can relate, but those words, they mean a lot. I’ve been burned in the past, and I think by the time the finale came and I’m writing my speech, that’s when you leave it all on the table. I didn’t wanna have any regrets. And I’ve known how I felt about Kendall for a long time, so I did my big one. I just said it. It scared the living s–t outta me, but it’s good to know that it’s reciprocated and all is well and I really couldn’t be happier.”
“She’s a tougher shell and that’s one of the reasons why I do love her and why it was just such a big moment for us,” Kendall added. “I’ll always remember that.”
Leah and Miguel
“Leah is an incredible woman. [We] get along in a way that I wasn’t expecting to ever get along with anybody in the villa,” Miguel gushed. “We have such similarities, our banter is the same. She understands my goofy side. She understands me for who I am. She took me away [with] how incredible of a person she is.”
While Miguel lives in the U.K. (he told Us that if he moved to the States, he would consider Miami) and Leah lives in California, the pair hope to keep their romance going. “I definitely want to see how far this goes and whatever happens, whatever happens, I don’t want to lose what me and her have created,” he said. “She’s definitely someone that I’ll hold dear for, I think, the rest of my life. We have made little plans — she wants to introduce me to her animals at her farm, which is what I’m looking forward to the most.”
The duo are also looking to meet up with their fellow Islanders. “We are talking about going to Disney World with the troop — me, Kordell, Serena, Leah, Aaron, Kaylor, everybody,” he continued. “She’s got some restaurants she wants to show me too, I’m gonna say ‘take me to,’ because I’ll be taking her, but she’s introducing me to the restaurant, you know what I’m saying? I’m definitely gonna be going straight to L.A. after this, just spending time with her, seeing her side of L.A. and enjoying each day at a time.”
JaNa and Kenny
Kenny is headed back to Dallas while JaNa returns to Las Vegas, but it won’t be long before they are reunited.
“I’m giving him 10 days max to have his alone time. And then boom, he’s gonna come visit me in Vegas. We have plans in Dallas for the Texas State Fair. He wants to do the rodeo, the gun range, like, we’re just doing Texas [soon],” JaNa told Us. “And he’s never been to Vegas, so [we have] to do the gambling and the shows and the clubs and everything you can think of. I’m gonna have it all laid out for him. We’re busy when we get out of here.”
Kenny added that the duo will definitely meet up before the August 19 reunion. “I’m gonna be missing her and thinking of her a lot,, so It’ll be sad when we have to say bye at LAX,” Kenny said, which Us can confirm prompted a classic “Kenny” from JaNa.
