Currently on her fourth stint as a Love Island contestant, Lucinda Strafford may be unlucky in love, but at least she’s found a rich seam of employment.
Right now, the jet-setting influencer’s address is the Love Island All Stars villa just outside Cape Town, South Africa, into which she made her typically bombshell entrance last week.
While her fellow contestants gasped in surprise at her arrival, the viewers ,ight have been less surprised as Lucinda has become something of a fixture on the show.
She first appeared in the seventh series of Love Island in 2021, then on the Australian iteration two years later, followed by the Love Island Games last October.
The latter earned her a half-share of the $250,000 (£182,000) prize, as she and her partner Isaiah Campbell won the series (although just weeks after the finale, she revealed she was dating another contestant).
Yet, even a payout of that size might seem insufficient to fund Lucinda’s extraordinary lifestyle, which includes five-star hotels, designer clothes and trips to locations dripping in wealth.
She has been seen in Saint-Tropez, Bali, in Miami for the Formula One Grand Prix, and at the achingly hip Colorado desert festival of Coachella.
Lucinda Strafford earned a half-share of the $250,000 (£182,000) Love island prize money, when she and her partner, Isaiah Campbell, won the series
Partying with her billionaire pal and long-rumoured love interest, Huayi Huang, the owner of online fashion firm Peppermayo
Every trip is duly posted to her social media – which has left some of her two million-plus followers on TikTok and Instagram to question how the 26-year-old former air hostess is paying for her life of luxury.
Now the Daily Mail can reveal that the answer lies with a billionaire pal and long-rumoured love interest – Huayi Huang, the 38-year-old owner of Australian online fashion firm Peppermayo – who is picking up the tab.
Those who know the couple tell me: ‘He funds her lavish lifestyle. She is treated to expensive meals and staycations in the UK, and jets around the world with Huayi on Peppermayo-brand trips.’
Lucinda has been on at least eight expensive jaunts with the Sydney-based label, including those stays at the Miami Grand Prix and Coachella, where all expenses are covered, including five-star hotel rooms or villas, travel, food and drinks. It is also understood she has received an array of new outfits.
Rumours that Huang and Lucinda could be dating began when they were pictured having a blazing row between the sunbeds of a Mexican resort in March last year, although she insisted to reporters that the two were ‘just friends’.
Lucinda has also shared videos to Snapchat of the couple at parties and downing shots together.
In what appears to be a veiled reference to Huang, Lucinda’s ex-boyfriend has confirmed she is currently dating someone from outside the show.
The influencer doesn’t shy away from flaunting her jet-setting lifestyle online – at a basketball game in the US
Lucinda has been on at least eight expensive jaunts with the Sydney-based Peppermayo label, including Coachella (pictured), where all expenses are covered
Ex-boyfriend Zac Nunn (pictured with Lucinda), who she met on Love Island Australia, has claimed Lucinda currently has a boyfriend outside of the villa
Zac Nunn, who she met on Love Island Australia, told his Snapchat Story that Lucinda has now ‘found someone’ who is happy for her to go on dating shows despite being in a relationship – and said everyone in the villa should be made aware ‘that’s the deal’.
Lucinda certainly doesn’t shy away from flaunting lifestyle online. In one recent TikTok, Lucinda can be seen grinning and dancing at a basketball game.
The caption reads: ‘Dance if you are on your 8th Peppermayo brand trip in 8 months’.
In another, she takes fans on a tour of the Tower Penthouse suite at The Londoner hotel in Leicester Square, which typically costs at least £7,000 a night.
Lucinda is often seen posing with huge bouquets of roses which, worth hundreds of pounds, have been left waiting in hotel rooms for her. She has even travelled to some events in helicopters.
But one source close to the star finds the arrangement with Huayi ‘weird’, suggesting that Lucinda can be difficult company.
The source said: ‘Lucinda is completely self-centred, and just loves herself. If someone pays her a compliment by saying, “Oh, you look really nice”, she’ll be like “Yes, I know I’m beautiful”. She really is so arrogant and up herself.’
The source continued: ‘The whole situation with Huayi was just weird. Everyone was talking about it, she didn’t care who knew that he was paying for her. Lucinda is always out for herself. She’s not a very nice person.
‘People actually felt a bit sorry for Huayi in the end and wondered what was in it for him. Everyone knew he was funding her life before she went back into the Love Island villa.’
Meanwhile, she claims to have purchased her new home – complete with a kitchen island and spacious garden – in her native Brighton ‘on her own’.
She has certainly earned well from her many Love Island appearances.
‘She might not need the money, but Lucinda returns to TV to stay relevant, and producers are always happy to have her back as she brings the drama,’ one insider tells me.
She is reportedly paid £3,500 a week for appearing on the current Love Island All Stars show. That is on top of the £90,000 prize money she pocketed from the Games series, last year.
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