Heartbreak Ahead! Matilda & Mark's Special Spark

The co-hosts spill all their island secrets

- Amy Nelmes Bissett

Getting in front of the camera to host a TV show for the first time would be nerve-wracking for most. But not if you’re Matilda Rice or Mark Dye.

The dynamic duo are fronting TVNZ 2’s new series Heartbreak Island, confessing to Woman’s Day on our sizzling photo shoot in Fiji that rather than feeling tense during filming, they kept getting in trouble for laughing.

“I was worried that he’d be a dick and I’d have to hang out with him every day for six weeks,” Matilda tells us. “But it was so much fun. We ended up joking about the whole time as we weren’t the ones getting eliminated.”

Mark adds, “Yeah, the producers had to tell us to stop laughing and to try to hold the tension so many times, but our hearts weren’t on the line – we weren’t going to lose out on $100,000.”

Heartbreak Island has been made to shock, throwing 16 genetically blessed singles onto an exotic Fijian island to battle it out for a cash prize and, of course, true love.

It might sound simple, but add in alcohol-fuelled parties and a sly loophole allowing contestants to swap partners, and the result is simply “TV gold”, laughs Mark.

It’s both his and Matilda’s first time as TV hosts – and they landed on their feet.

“Every morning, we were dying to find out what happened the night before,” says Matilda. “We were very invested in the contestants’ lives from day one, really.”

Mark chips in, “We loved, we hated and, actually, our opinions on people changed as the series went on.”