‘Love Island USA’ Winners Hannah and Marco Are Loving Their Relationship Outside The Villa: “This Just Feels Right”

With the end of summer comes the end of another season of Love Island USA, the real-time dating show that runs dozens of twenty-somethings through a romantic wringer in hopes of creating some long-lasting couples. The winners of Season 5, Hannah Wright and Marco Donatelli, are one such couple — a couple united on Day 3 who ultimately won the grand prize on Day 40. Oh — and they also won $100,000.

But come on, the real prize has to be the relationship forged during six weeks spent in a neon villa in beautiful Fiji lounging in cabanas and playing kooky games while in even kookier costumes. Marco and Hannah’s journey is what Love Island USA is all about. And even when faced with shocking temptation, like the producers airlifting one of Marco’s exes to the villa, these two never wavered. They were ride or die from Day 1. Well, Day 3.

Now that Hannah and Marco have won the grand prize as well as some spending money thanks to the viewers who voted, they are ready to enter the real world with their newfound romance. Decider caught up with Hannah and Marco during their whirlwind week post-win and got the tea on forming lifelong friendships, surviving the Soul Ties curse, and hanging with the one and only Bergie.

Decider: Congratulations on winning Love Island USA. Did you guys know you were going to win the entire time?

Hannah Wright: No, no, of course not! We did not know we were gonna win the whole entire time. It’s honestly something that doesn’t come into your mind until those finals are announced. And then it’s like, “Oh, wow, people really like us so they voted for us in the finals.” But you never know what people might think one week and the next week is different. You never know how people’s opinions change, so the fact that we were saved from all the recouplings and all that, it was just a plus to make it this far. And then to win it is the cherry on top. It’s crazy.

Marco Donatelli: Yeah, yeah, unbelievable. Winning — I love winning, I love competing, but in that sense, I didn’t really take it as a game outside of challenges and stuff. But I was competing for her the whole time. It was a competition for me to win her. So I was definitely competing the whole time, but it was just for her. Knowing that we were a favorite? We had no idea. We didn’t think about it. I never had a conversation about it. I don’t think until literally the final day we were like, “Oh, well, we’re still here. They must like us.” It was just unbelievable.

You two coupled up from the moment Hannah entered the villa.

Wright: Yeah, when I saw him on Night 2.

Usually, those long-term couples on these shows disappear into the background and they let all the drama unfold around them. What I loved about you two is you still managed to be in the thick of the drama, either helping people out or just watching and having a good time. Is that just your nature, to be social and not spend time secluded?

Wright: To an extent. We were very much secluded at the end. I feel like we kind of did drift because it’s a lot. To be honest, after Casa Amor I was like, “I need to unwind and just have a mental break.” We’re very social people in the outside world, but we have very small circles. My social life, I’m not out all the time. That’s just not what I do. I like to say I’m an antisocial extrovert. So in a group of people, I’m gonna have a good time and I’m gonna be there. But we definitely escaped and had our alone time, too. I think that we’re just enjoying having that right now.

Donatelli: In the villa I could talk to a tree and get a response. I definitely love talking to everybody. I’m always trying to give my input and advice in the best way. Kind of got featured as a gossip boy during Movie Night. They’re kind of right. When you find [a relationship] so solid, how else am I going to be entertained the whole day? It was definitely how I got entertainment in there, and just watching, sitting back. And when I could watch with her, it was even better because we would just gossip to each other and just watched it all unfold. It was a bunch of fun, for sure.

Wright: [Casa Amor] was just so intense for both of us, not knowing where each other stands and then me getting the video.

Donatelli: We knew we were closed off.

Wright: No, yeah, we knew we were closed off but I feel like when you bring in people with history, things could change. You never know. So after that, there’s a scene of us that people were posting that’s like, “All right, can we do nothing tomorrow and not talk to anybody?” That was us toward the end of the show, for sure.

I have to ask y’all about Bergie. What casting! He’s the manager of a Dairy Queen from a small town who has kissed maybe two people before coming to Love Island. What did you think of Bergie when you first saw him? Did you think that he was for real or a plant?

Donatelli: I thought it was a genius opportunity for everybody. This is reality TV. We’re supposed to be able to relate, and there’s a lot of people that can relate to Bergie out there. I’m not gonna lie: the way I look might seem different, but I have a little nerdy side to me as well. I love crafts and art and stuff. Bergie was able to bring a little nerdy side out of me you know. He’s so passionate about being a manager at the Dairy Queen He loves ice cream. I asked him every time, what’s his favorite food? He doesn’t take a filet mignon. He doesn’t take chicken parmesan. He tells me freakin’ ice cream.

When I saw him walk out on Day 1, I was like, [casting] did their thing. We had a guy who hardly spoke in English in Victor, then we had Bergie, you have Leo who’s screaming, I’m just me. It was unbelievable. And from the start, Bergie and I had a great relationship. It did get stronger as it went on. There was one clip, I called him a douchebag — but I call everybody a douchebag. And seeing Bergie stand up for a lot of people who relate to him and being that guy, it takes true character. It takes a strong human to be able to do that. He kissed the most girls in the villa! From kissing two in his life, he kissed the most girls in the villa.

Wright: We counted 14.

Donatelli: It was unbelievable.

Wright: I just feel like Bergie is somebody who comes from a very different world from a lot of us. He’s never really left the Midwest, so he’s thrown in this villa with people from different countries, different backgrounds, different cultures, and I think he killed it because he was himself. And I feel like that’s a lot. I always wanted to give him credit.

At Disneyland yesterday, we noticed the demographic of viewers for this show, and I think that’s why we did so good. This season had such a wide range. We had families coming up to us. We had moms and their young daughters coming up to us, we had husbands — “My girl put on the show and I didn’t want to watch it at first, but we like your guys’ show.” I feel like all of us, throughout the whole cast, can relate to somebody, and Bergie is definitely somebody who people can relate to.

You also got really close to each other this season, all the guys and all the girls. You went onto the show hoping to find love, but did you also expect to find this many friends?

Wright: No. I didn’t expect that. I think that people don’t realize, yeah, some people are closer than others, but it really is all love at the end of the day. And that’s one thing that Marco, we always want to put out there. We really do love everyone on the cast who was in there because they were part of our journey. They were part of our life. We’re living with them. We had moments. You bump heads with your family. Oh my goodness, I fight with my family all the time. But then we love each other at the end of the day.

Donatelli: Bergie said one thing on one of the final nights: you learn something from everybody. And I think that was one of the best things he could have said. I learned from everybody who walked in through that door.

I have to ask about the Soul Ties curse. Some of your first conversations were in Soul Ties. Were you seeing all these other couples go down in flames after going up to Soul Ties and wondering if you were next?

Donatelli: As Kay Kay said, “Soul Ties is crazy.” She was genius for coming up with that. That was an amazing play on words by her. It’s this intimate setting. We walk up there, but you have to lay down, so you just automatically get closer. Our first kiss was there.

Wright: One of our first chats was there.

Donatelli: We got sexy there.

Wright: A couple times. It is really interesting, Soul Ties, because it is beautiful. The architecture is great, but you think it’s private. That’s what it is. You think it’s private, but me and Anna, when we were sitting [below it], we can you can hear your whole conversation.

The villa is such a gorgeous place, but now you’re in hotels or on planes. How has the relationship changed now that you’re not in paradise?

Wright: For me it feels the same. If anything it just feels like, wow, I’m doing life with you. Obviously coming out we have that thought in our mind, “Is things gonna be different?” Everyone is thinking that. But we went to Walmart together the other day and I’m like, “This just feels right.” If we can go on Walmart runs together, who knows what else we can conquer? I would feel weird if he wasn’t here, just because I’ve been with him the whole time.

Donatelli: She has a friend in me, and I just think that’s the best thing. I remember some nights I had bad days and I was just so upset, but I was secluded by myself and I kind of had to sleep on those thoughts. And here you have a teammate through life. She can grab the meat while I grab the milk. [Laughs] No weird shit there.

Wright: [Laughs] I’m trying not to laugh.

Donatelli: You know, something like that.

Wright: I’d say I grab the bread while he grabs the bottle of wine.

Love Island USA is a commitment for viewers, airing six nights a week. Are y’all going to binge it all now? Are you going to sit down and watch all 37 episodes now that it’s over?

Wright: No, I don’t plan on watching. We’ve seen clips on social media, obviously, but I remember this happening. It is interesting to see the intense music and everything. If I was a viewer, I’d be like, “Oh, this is cool.”

Donatelli: Maybe in a couple of years, we can look back and laugh. But I don’t watch TV at all, and the clips that I saw as a college male, I would be locked in, every night — and this is myself on TV. It was just that interesting. When I see myself, it’s kind of hard to watch. But when I see everybody else, absolutely locked in.

Wright: Because we don’t know how all the conversations went down. We don’t know everything like that. I understand why it was popular.