{"id":479163,"date":"2026-06-02T12:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479163\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:58:16","slug":"love-island-star-unrecognisable-in-old-snap-before-dramatic-hair-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479163\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Island star unrecognisable in old snap before dramatic hair transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Island’s Sean Fitzgerald looked very different before entering the villa\"Sean\"<\/p>\n

The primary school teacher looks different in a pre-villa snap(Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

Love Island’s<\/a> Sean Fitzgerald looks worlds apart from his pre-villa appearance in a throwback photo.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old, a primary school teacher and Gaelic football player from Galway, is among the 12 singles who stepped into the iconic villa<\/a> in search of romance under the Spanish sun.<\/p>\n

During the launch night on June 1, Sean found himself caught in the middle as contestants were given the task of selecting their own partners.<\/p>\n

The star, affectionately known as Fitzy, ultimately coupled up with Lola, a 28-year-old detective from Kent. Upon making his villa entrance, his bleach blonde buzz cut immediately turned heads, swiftly catching the attention of the female contestants.<\/p>\n

However, before his television debut, the star – who boasts over 43k Instagram followers and more than 100k TikTok followers – sported a rather different look, reports OK!<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n

In an older Instagram post, Sean appears as a brunette, sporting a lengthy, shaggy side-swoop cut, with several followers drawing comparisons to High School Musical’s Troy Bolton, portrayed by Zac Efron.<\/p>\n

In yet another photograph, Sean went for a mullet, which promptly sent the comment section into a frenzy.<\/p>\n

One follower wrote: “What In the um hello is Troy Bolton doing hacking your insta.” Another remarked: “Wannabe Troy Bolton.” A third simply stated: “Zac Efron.” While another quipped: “I want my mullet back.”<\/p>\n

Prior to joining the Villa, Sean posted a viral Love Island ‘audition’ clip on TikTok that accumulated almost one million views, sparking responses from audiences ranging from “cringe” and “embarrassing beyond belief” to “brilliant”.<\/p>\n

The footage was uploaded in February and showed Sean making his case for a spot in the villa. He explained why he’d be perfect for the programme, growing increasingly enthusiastic as the video progressed.<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/p>\n

Everyone couldn’t help but notice Sean’s bleach blonde buzz cut hair (Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

At the time, those watching the clip debated whether it represented a genuine attempt to attract producers’ notice or was simply a joke. Speaking to Bristol Live, Sean confirmed he was merely poking fun at the show – though it captured the attention of programme bosses nonetheless, who reached out to him the next day.<\/p>\n

“Yeah so when I posted that video I wasn’t really doing an audition as such, I was just watching clips on TikTok and loads of Love Island clips were coming up,” he said. “I just thought it seemed quite boring, or like the people on it didn’t seem like that much craic.”<\/p>\n

He continued: “I was thinking ‘Jeez, I wish I was in there I could liven it up a bit’, so I just went outside, did a bit of a spiel about what I would do if I was in there. It wasn’t actually an application as such, it was just a video kind of messing or whatever saying what I’d do if I was on there.<\/p>\n

“The next day they actually rang me saying would I want to do an interview, so I didn’t apply or anything. I said ‘Sure I’ll do an interview’. But I wasn’t really thinking about it much.”<\/p>\n

Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Island’s Sean Fitzgerald looked very different before entering the villa The primary school teacher looks different in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,1397,26474],"class_list":["post-479163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-love-island","tag-zac-efron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}