Love Island winner Davide Sanclimenti has revealed that he and girlfriend Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu “never really broke up.”
The Love Island 2022 winners announced their shock split in June, before rekindling their romance just a few weeks later.
Since getting back together, the couple have learned to keep their relationship under wraps.
The Italian reality TV star has opened up to OK! Magazine about their split earlier this year.
He said: “When we ‘split’ we were still speaking. To be honest, we never really broke up – we were always keeping in touch.”
“But I think looking back now, I think the break helped both of us to understand each other more. We are more understanding of each other.”
The 28-year-old continued: “It was probably for the best that we broke up. We came out of a TV show, we had a lot of stress and pressure from the public – which is really hard when you’re in a relationship.”
“But it’s helped us get to know each other better, and know what the other one wants and needs, so it’s definitely better now.”
During an interview with The Sun in October, Davide explained that they briefly parted ways after they failed to see eye-to-eye on a number of issues.
He said: “It’s a lovely feeling being with Ekin, we probably broke up more publicly but never privately because we have always been in touch and the love between me and Ekin have always been there.”
“Breaking up may happen to people but it never actually happened to us. We never properly privately broke up, it was more to do with the public pressure and we were having some tough months. It was a bit of pressure on both sides.”
When asked why they kept their rekindled romance under wraps, Davide said: “Of course there were some things that both of us wanted to work on.”
“Nor me nor Ekin were perfect in the relationship and probably needed to have a bit more communication and now I don’t regret nothing that happened because I feel stronger and I feel we understand each other.”
The Italian star hoped to not repeat the same mistakes and ensured that he and Ekin-Su will not be making the same “errors”.
“The next step is to chill and see how it goes, be understanding to each other and don’t do the same error that we did last year,” he said.
Ekin-Su and Davide shot to fame when they appeared on the 2022 series of Love Island.
The pair were a fan-favourite couple, and went on to win the series – beating runners up Gemma Owen and Luca Bish.
Shortly after leaving the villa, the fan-favourite contestants landed their own two-part show, Ekin-Su & Davide: Homecomings, which saw them travel to their native Turkey and Italy to meet each other’s families and experience each other’s cultures.
