'Love Island's' Chloe Burrows admits fake romance with 'Too Hot to Handle' star for 'showmance' documentary

‘Love Island’ star Chloe Burrows has admitted she created a fake romance with a fellow reality star to highlight the power of celebrity couples in a new documentary.

Burrows, aged 28, pretended to be romantically involved with ‘Too Hot To Handle's’ Harry Johnson, age 31, so that see could see first hand the impact of ‘showmances’.

She first came to public attention in 2021 when she took part in the seventh season of ITV 2 dating show ‘Love Island’. She finished in second place with Toby Aromolaran, 25. The couple weren’t meant to be, however, and split the following year - and that is when Burrows says she set out to investigate the way celebrity couples can make money through the media.

The resulting Channel 4 documentary, ‘Love In The Limelight: UNTOLD’ aired yesterday (Wednesday April 24). In the documentary, Burrows spoke to genuine ‘Love Island’ couples Liam Reardon and Millie Court and Cara De La Hoyde and Nathan Massey, who admitted to staging arguments as they knew this would gain the attention of paparazzi and ultimately make them money.

Burrows then revealed she was going to stage a fake romance to see if she could also make money. She said in the documentary: “Now I've heard how it all works and the big money involved, I want to put it to the test, it's time to launch my own showmance. If I really was going to be serious, that is so easy to make money off. You can start to see the web of finances that can go behind a reality couple.”

Burrows comments came after she was told that there was potential to make up to £250,000 a year from a fake media romance. With that in mind, she set up photographs of herself on various outings with reality star Johnson.

Johnson was a contestant on season 3 of Netflix dating show ‘Too Hot to Handle’, with aired in 2022. He formed a connection with fellow contestant Beaux Raymond and the two went on to win the show together - sharing a prize fund of £34,000. But, they split just weeks after filming ended.

Burrows and Johnson met with celebrity agent Dave Read, who looks after fellow former TV contestants Joey Essex and Hannah Elizabeth, who told them he could see a 'lucrative future' for them.

He suggested that they set up photographs of them house-hunting or ring shopping together to make the most money. He added: “There's no reason that between you in one year you couldn't bank a quarter of a million pounds.”

Explaining why she chose to create a fake partnership with Johnson, Burrows said in an interview with ‘The Sun’ that he wasn’t “too close to home” and had a “healthy” established following online.

She found that their supposed relationship did end up being covered by multiple news outlets, while Johnson quickly gained 18,000 more followers on social media due to his alleged romance with her - something which she said “shocked” her.

After the documentary was released, Burrows took to her Instagram page to thank her fans for their reaction. Sharing a selfie of her crying she wrote: “Crying happy tears in the back of this cab cos I'm already overwhelmed by the response. Love u lot xxxx. P.S. I know I said I'd never post a vid crying but happy tears are allowed!”

She also shared a post about her show, writing: 'GUYS!!! Cannot believe I'm writing this but today marks the launch of my first documentary with @channel4 Untold strand where I explore what life is like for some of our most well-known reality couples living out their romances in the public eye.

“Oh yes…and those paparazzi picture you saw of me and @harryjohnson92 lurking around the press might be part of the plot too!!! / massive huge part… faked a whole showmance!!! Huge thank you to the amazing team at @flickerproductions for supporting me from start to finish on this one, I couldn't have done it without you!

“Love in the Limelight is available to stream today on Channel 4, can't wait to hear what you all think. Love from Chloe xxx'.”