Love Island star reveals she's QUIT the UK for new life 5000 miles away four years after leaving the villa
LOVE Island alum Abigail Rawlings has opened up on the struggles she's faced since moving to the US.
The tattoo artist and former reality TV star packed up her home in the UK and moved thousands of miles away to Los Angeles.
6
6
6
Abi, 31, decided to move to La La Land and continue her tattooing career there in what she described as her "dream life."
She had not posted much since arriving and admitted to her 351,000 that she'd been finding the move tough.
Alongside a series of photos, including one of her filling up her car at a petrol station, Abi revealed she felt like she was finally settling in.
"So today is officially my third week living in LA.. I'll be dead honest and admit it's been way more challenging than I ever expected it to be," Abi wrote in the caption of the Instagram post.
"I haven't been posting much on the grid cause honestly it's been mainly pretty boring life stuff, tryna get set up in a new country ain't no joke.. I mean literally no one said it was gonna be easy.. but FECK America why you gotta make everything so dam tricky??"
Abi continued by saying she'd spent the majority of her time there "feeling overwhelmed and stressed."
"But as of yesterday, I finally got my SSN (social security number) through (something I discovered you can't do anything without it here) so now I can finally make a start on finding my own little apartment and create my own little safe space to start building my foundations for my new lil dream La life," she wrote.
"Regardless of how hard it's been to adjust so far, I'm still unbelievably grateful for this opportunity to start again and even more grateful for the beautiful souls I'm so lucky to have in my life that love and support me endlessly."
Abi revealed in earlier posts that she had manifested the life she wanted in LA and could not believe it had finally come true.
She also told her fans that she would be working at the Sasha Tattooing Gallery and doing guest spots at the Be More You studio.
Abi shot to fame on series seven of Love Island in 2021.
She entered on day 24 and coupled up with Toby Aromolaran - but he dumped her during Casa Amor for Mary Bedford.
Abi later chose to couple up with Dale Mehmet and the pair were dumped from the villa on day 42.
6
6
6
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Bruce Springsteen: Tracks II — all seven lost albums reviewed
It is hard to believe but from 1983 to 2018 Bruce Springsteen wrote, recorded, completed and decided not to release a remarkable seven albums. These are not the usual rag-tag collections sold as buried treasure, usually after an artist's death, which turn out to be nothing more than a bunch of demos never intended for public consumption in the first place. These are actual albums, shaped by a sound and a theme, which for one reason or another Springsteen decided to hold back, lock away in a cupboard and forget all about — until now. Back in 1998 Springsteen did release Tracks, a four-CD box set of mostly unreleased songs, but that featured a lot of material already out there. Out of the 83 songs on Tracks II: The Lost Albums, however, 74 are previously unheard. Time to dig in. • Exclusive interview: Bruce Springsteen on his lost albums ★★★★☆Unsure whether to continue in the moody, low-key vein of Nebraska (1982) or release Born in the USA and become the air-punching, denim-clad Eighties rock colossus of legend, Springsteen put together this collection of folky character studies in a garage at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Crime and punishment feature heavily: Jim Deer concerns a former robber reflecting on his lot in prison, Richfield Whistle has the same character struggling to rehabilitate himself once he's out and Fugitive's Dream is about a man whose stable life is derailed by the return of a sinister figure from his misspent youth. Springsteen has written frequently about people who cannot escape their past, mirroring his own attempt to silence inner demons through constant work, and they are all over this bleak, sparse, affecting album. Some of the songs did pop up elsewhere in altered forms, such as Born in the USA's My Hometown and the 1984 B-side Johnny Bye-Bye, a Chuck Berry song rewritten as a reflection on the death of Elvis Presley. For the most part, though, this is a tantalising vision of how Springsteen's life and career could have turned out very differently track: The Klansman ★★★★★In 1994 Streets of Philadelphia, written for Jonathan Demme's Aids movie Philadelphia, went to No 2, giving Springsteen his biggest UK chart hit and reviving his career in the process. He considered releasing an entire album of electronic recordings in the same vein, played out on drum loops and synthesizers, which he had been experimenting with at his new home in Bel-Air, Los Angeles. And he gave free rein to his darkest thoughts in the process. Maybe I Don't Know You is an ominous tale of paranoia, with the unfamiliar sight of a lover's dress sending the narrator down a spiral of jealousy. Blind Spot puts a funky drummer loop and a sampled shout against an oppressive tale of lovers inhabiting each other 'like it was some kind of disease' and the self-explanatory Waiting on the End of the World comes with an ominous siren call. This is deep, revelatory material, a product of inner torment and musical curiosity. That might be why Springsteen held it back, got the old E Street Band back together and put out a greatest hits album track: Maybe I Don't Know You • 50 years with Springsteen: my life working for the Boss ★★★★☆While he was busy returning to socially conscious roots with the sombre 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad, Springsteen intended to lighten the mood of that folky collection with a second disc of rockabilly and country songs. So he gathered up an ace session crew, including the pedal steel player Marty Rifkin and the violinist Soozie Tyrell, and cut the whole thing live at his Thrill Hill Beverly Hills home studio. Repo Man, a portrait of the guy who comes to take your car away when you don't keep up the monthly payments, found Springsteen at his most carefree, while Detail Man and Delivery Man are essentially: same tune, different men. Under a Big Sky is a classic heartbreak song in the clean-cut Nashville tradition and the fun Janey Don't You Lose Heart popped up as a Born in the USA-era B-side. It all sounds like the kind of thing you'd want to hear in a honky-tonk on the edge of town: loose, cheerful, not entirely track: Detail Man ★★★★★Inspired by Across the Borderline, Ry Cooder's theme to Tony Richardson's 1982 human smuggling saga The Border, Springsteen recorded an album's worth of tales from the Mexican diaspora, historical, social and magical realist. The Lost Charro tells of a proud former cowboy who finds himself picking fruit in the States, Our Lady of Monroe features a retiring police detective who makes a pilgrimage to a town where the Madonna has been spotted, and Ciudad Juarez depicts drugs and gun smuggling over the Rio Grande. Essentially Springsteen captured the immigrant experience: the dream of going to a place where the streets are paved with gold, only to discover that you might lose more than you'll ever gain. With mariachi brass augmenting a rich tapestry of guitars, keyboards and violins, it must be the most elegant album Springsteen never track: When I Build My Beautiful House • Bruce Springsteen: I knew I'd be a musician. It was my only skill ★★★☆☆The only album in the collection not originally intended as a standalone release, here Springsteen had put together various unused rock songs, chiefly as a way of balancing out the folky introspection dominating elsewhere. That's why it doesn't hang together with the same purpose and cohesion as the others. Still, there are plenty of built-for-stadium belters to enjoy, all of them ready to be revived for the next E Street Band world tour. Rain in the River is the kind of rousing belter Wrecking Ball (2012) is filled with, while You Lifted Me Up is a spiritually inclined singalong with backing vocals from Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa, and the E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt. The title track, meanwhile, imagines a place where 'every stray dog would find his way'. This has more in common with the feelgood vibes of Springsteen's concerts than the dark moments captured on so many of his quieter albumsTop track: Rain in the River ★★★★☆Written for a film that was never made — a 'spiritual western', according to Springsteen —Faithless features a rare thing for a man who has dedicated his life to crafting the perfect song: instrumental music. Heavenly choirs, twanging guitars and even a celeste contribute to evoke the dusty, desolate beauty of the desert, where we can only assume the abandoned film was set. There are some great songs too, such as Where You Going Where You From, featuring Springsteen's young children Evan and Sam on backing vocals, and Let Me Ride, a close gospel relation to the live favourite Land of Hope and Dreams. Almost nothing is known about the film that never even got to the shooting stage but Where You Going has a line about crossbows and Hawken guns, and Goin' to California conjures images of saloons, whiskey bottles and twirling señoritas, so we can only imagine this was an abandoned Martin Scorsese project about frontiers people wrestling with God and the Devil. Funnily enough, Springsteen wrote such weighty material on a jolly horse-riding trip with his equestrian daughter in track: Let Me Ride • How Bruce Springsteen's darkest days inspired his biopic ★★★★★Leaving the countryside for the city, ditching his plaid shirt for a tuxedo, the Boss headed to the middle of the road for an elegant collection of songs about love lost, regrets made and lives lived. Writing music with the chordal complexity of Burt Bacharach, singing with the purity of Frank Sinatra, Springsteen set himself the challenge of leaving behind familiar styles for orchestrally enhanced songs on the lonely side of romance. 'She's gone and I carry on,' he mourns on Late in the Evening, while Lonely Town could have come straight from a Broadway musical. Springsteen intended Twilight Hours as a companion piece to the 2019 'countrypolitan' album Western Stars but he decided at the last minute to hold it back — an odd choice given this is such a fully realised exercise in songwriting classicism. From the falsetto climax of Sunliner, to the lonely harmonica opening Dinner at Eight, to the small-town love story turned crime drama in High Sierra — another song about a man who cannot outrun his past — Twilight Hours is the most unSpringsteen-like album that Springsteen ever track: High Sierra Tracks II: The Lost Albums by Bruce Springsteen (Columbia) is out on June 27
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Love Island announces surprise recoupling as fans predict things will get 'very messy' after juicy spin the bottle challenge
Love Island has announced a shock recoupling as reeling fans predict things will get 'very messy' following the outcome. The latest episode of the ITV dating show aired on Sunday night as the islanders were gathered around the fire pit. Just before the credits rolled on another attention-grabbing episode, a text was sent into the TV villa by bosses. It read: 'Islanders, tonight there will be a recoupling in which the girls will choose which boy they want to couple up with.' A further text message said: 'Boys, please stand in front of the firepit.' The tension was palpable as the girls started to consider their options, while the boys nervously gathered. Following the shock news, Love Island fans have flooded social media as they speculated on the results which will air on Monday's episode. One viewer said: 'This recoupling is about to be so f***ing messy because if Helena goes first then Toni can't pick Harrison.' A second wrote: 'Noooo, that recoupling is going to be juicy.' 'It shouldn't have ended on a cliffhanger but probably means the aftermath of recoupling is chaos,' said a third fan. Meanwhile, the dramatic ending comes after a game of Spin The Bottle saw the villa descend into chaos. In the game, whoever the spinning bottle landed on had take a card which read either truth or dare. It was up to the Islanders to get creative and think about a truth or dare for that specific person. Helena landed on a dare and Dejon dared her to kiss the person that she'd chose to recouple with, she kissed Harrison, little surprise after she broke things off with Harry. Up next was Megan, who pulls a truth card, leading Harry to ask how she genuinely feels about Conor. She told the group: 'Me and Conor got on from the start and that got cut short so I feel like there's unfinished business there, as you would say [Harry]'. Elsewhere, fans were convinced one singleton had 'gone missing' and asked if they'd left the villa over their lack of screentime. Alima Gagigo, 23, has seemingly been absent from the drama in recent days as her fellow villa residents lap up the spotlight. Unimpressed fans took to X following the latest show as they begged bosses to feature more of Alima, with one calming she'd not actually spoken on screen for the last two episodes. They fumed: 'Is Alima still in the villa?': 'Alima got 5 seconds of screen time and we are halfway through this episode': '2 episodes and I've not heard Alima's voice': 'Can we see Alima please': 'Wait where is Alima'.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Millionaire Tom Brady wins $1m as he beats Eli Manning and James Harden in Fanatics Games
Tom Brady showed his competitive spirit – and physical gifts – have not deserted him in retirement as he beat fans, celebrities and other athletes in the inaugural Fanatics Games. The seven-time Super Bowl champion, who earned $332m in salary alone during his 23-year NFL career, won $1m for his efforts. However, he said he would give $5,000 to each of the 50 fans who competed in the event and donate the rest to charity. 'There is a competitive spirit that I have … I had to at least show up and not embarrass myself,' Brady said after his victory. The competitors in the games, which took place at the Fanatics Fest in New York, took part in seven events including quarterback throwing skills, baseball pitching accuracy, soccer shooting, a golf challenge and a UFC striking competition. Brady finished second in the quarterback skills content, behind Texans QB CJ Stroud. UFC fighter Justin Gaethje finished in second place overall and won a Ferrari. The highest-placed fan was Matt Dennish, a teacher from Pennsylvania, who ended the competition in third place. He won a rare LeBron James trading card, which he sold to Brady for $250,000. 'I was in first for a while, but Brady came in and crushed my score,' Dennish told NBC. 'That was kind of frustrating too because I felt like I left points out there.' NBA star James Harden and former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning finished fourth and fifth respectively. They were the only other athletes to finish in the top 10. Brady jokingly ripped up Manning's Giants jersey as part of his WWE-style entrance. Manning beat Brady twice in the Super Bowl.
