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FUNNY FLUTTER
Love Island’s Maura Higgins on her romance with Curtis Pritchard, wearing sexy underwear and her ‘hilarious’ catchphrase
LOVE Island beauty Maura Higgins stole this summer’s show with her comments and outrageous flirting.
Here, she reveals she cannot now walk down the street without someone asking her to say “fanny flutters” — the term she famously used upon first seeing villa hunk Tommy Fury.
Speaking to The Sun on Sunday, she said: “People come up to me all the time in the street and ask me to say, ‘Fanny Flutters’ for a video.
It happens a lot. I don’t care what people think. That’s just me being myself.
“They just come up to me and say, ‘Can you just say it into my phone for me please’ and I’m like, ‘OK!’ It’s hilarious.”
Ex-promo girl Maura, who has just signed up for ITV’s Dancing On Ice, opens up about her romance with Love Island partner Curtis Pritchard, 23 — brother of Strictly star AJ — and how she loves showing him her eye-catching new undies.
In an exclusive interview, she added: “Curtis gets a sneak preview of all my lingerie and his reaction is a big massive ‘Wow!’ ”
Despite finishing fourth on this summer’s Love Island behind eventual champs Amber Gill and Greg O’Shea, Irish Maura has emerged as the real star of the show.
In the villa, she wowed viewers with her acerbic tongue, telling potential suitor Tom Walker to “Go f*** yourself” and rolled out her much-loved lines, such as “Are you joking?” and “Insane”, to win over an army of fans.
All this has helped to land Maura big-money deals with High Street fashion giants including Ann Summers as well as a swell of celebrity support, with One Direction star Liam Payne even tweeting that people should “#BeMoreMaura”.
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She said: “Be more Maura is basically like be ballsy, be confident. People liked watching me in the villa on Love Island.
“I’m very confident and I stand up for what I believe in. I think every woman should be confident within themselves really.
“That’s just me. I don’t care what I say - I’m just going to do what I want and say what I want.”
She added: “I had a great upbringing and my mum Sharon is a very confident woman. I reckon I definitely got my confidence from her.
“There’s a lot of people that will just put a smile on their face but deep down they might not feel that confident.
“I think that no matter what shape, size, race, style — anything — you should be confident, because if you are confident on the inside it will show on the outside.”
On the show, Maura showed interest in boxer Tommy and model Tom before settling down with Curtis, who she has been dating for three months.
And despite it being early days, she said a visit to a clairvoyant recently has made her believe things could get very serious quite quickly.
Opening up about Curtis for the first time, she said: “I met this psychic who claimed Curtis would propose to me within six months.
“We spend time together. Some nights we just want to chill out in front of the TV, then other times we might go on a date night. It’s going really well actually.
“We’re both lucky. We’re very, very busy and the most important thing is we make time for each other.
“We do see each other, not as much as we hoped but we do see each other.
“I take every day as it comes. I’m very happy right now and I focus on now. That’s just the way I am.
“Will the future involve me and Curtis living in a cottage in the country somewhere with a couple of little Pritchards running around, or will I still be partying in the West End? Who knows? We’ll have to wait and see.”
In recent years, Love Island was rocked by the suicides of former contestants Mike Thalassitis, 26, and Sophie Gradon, 32, who both struggled with life after appearing on the show.
It meant that show bosses are extra-cautious with looking after the wellbeing of contestants.
Maura said she found coming out of the villa a “real struggle” but revealed she still gets calls from producers now to check up on her.
She said: “It’s not easy coming out after the show. When I first left I was very, very overwhelmed by everything. It’s a complete different life. It’s different — very, very different.
“I mean everyone knows who you are but for me at the beginning, I took a couple of days away from it all just to focus on me.
“And I think that was the best thing I could have done. The producers have been incredible. They’ve been 100 per cent there for me. I still get phone calls from them all.
'I STRUGGLED'
“I’m still very, very close with them. They always check up on every one of us.” Now Maura is ITV’s glamorous new signing for Dancing On Ice, which starts on January 8.
Last year, former Love Islanders Wes Nelson and Megan Barton-Hanson split after claims he grew close to his pro dance partner.
But Maura said she is not worried about a new “curse of Dancing On Ice” and admitted that if she is going to win, she is going to need to get a partner she has chemistry with.
She said: “Obviously you have to have a connection with your dance partner. You wouldn’t be doing it properly if you didn’t but hopefully when I get my pro, we’ll both get on and we dance very well together.
“That’s all I ask for. Somebody I get on with, who’s a good teacher, and gets me to the finals as I’m definitely in it to win it, although it’s a lot harder than I ever anticipated.”
But the model, who is now training in the US for the show, added: “I’m already battered and bruised from the practice but it’s going very well actually.
“So far I’m good at falling down and not very good at standing up which isn’t great, I know.
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“I’ve improved a little bit, though I’ve got a long way to go — but I’m really enjoying it. I’m loving it at the moment. I struggled at the beginning. I think I’m probably still struggling. But I’m progressing.”
Maura, who has 2.5million Instagram followers, has also just landed her dream role as the face — and body — of Ann Summers.
She said: “I’ve loved Ann Summers for years. Working with them is a dream come true. I cannot believe that my face is going to be on the shop windows. I just can’t deal with it. It’s insane.”
Love Island's Maura Higgins looks sexier than ever in her new Boohoo fashion range
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