She's A Cockney Rebel

Last summer’s Love Island winner became the most talked-about woman in the UK – simply by being herself. But when the cameras stop rolling, who is the real Dani Dyer?

- Tracy Ramsden

When she was growing up, Dani Dyer and her mother referred to the Canning Town flat in which they lived as “The Shining”, a reference to the sinister hotel with endless corridors that features in the classic horror film of the same name. “Wow, there’s a Co-op now,” she points out as we drive through her old stomping ground, all high-rise tower blocks and honking rush-hour traffic. An east Londoner born and bred, Dyer smiles as she reminisces about climbing over her grandmother’s garden wall to play on the swings in nearby Cundy Park. This is Dyer’s happy place, where – after much toing and froing – she has requested to do her Cosmopolitan cover interview, in transit, joined by her PR rep and a bemused cabbie. I’ve had one-to-ones with the Prime Minister, Angelina Jolie and Kate Moss, yet it’s Dani Dyer who’s too busy for a cup of tea and a sit-down.

For the uninitiated – or anyone who underwent a social-media blackout last summer – Dani Dyer, 22, became the most famous woman in the UK for spending eight weeks in a villa on Mallorca. The Love Island finale saw Dyer and her on-screen (now IRL) boyfriend, Jack Fincham, win with almost 80% of the public vote. The show became a high-low phenomenon, pulling in 3.6 million viewers and acres of column inches, from tabloid splashes to broadsheet think-pieces and discussions on BBC Radio 4. It was the Brexit distraction that none of us knew we needed. And Dyer was its runaway star, bringing authenticity and oldfashioned values to the hyper-filtered, silicon-manipulated world of reality TV, when she fell sweetly, innocently, for a pen salesman from Kent.