It's impossible to imagine Love Island without the voice of Iain Stirling.

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The stand-up comedian, who is dating the show's host Laura Whitmore, is as much a part of the series as those iconic water bottles.

But apparently he wasn't the man ITV2 originally penned for the job.

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Love Island Australia's voice-over genius Eoghan McDermott said that he was originally being considered for the role but lost out after messing up his audition. "I was doing the Drivetime show on XFM and ITV got in touch and to say they had this cool new show called Love Island, this was seven years ago now, and they wanted me to test to be the voice of it," he recalls.

Eoghan McDermott
Eoghan McDermott (ITV)

"They sent me some footage to look at," he explains. "I’ve gone up for stuff and not got it before, that’s the game, but I’ve never made a balls up of an audition like I did that day. They sent me some clips with a guide voiceover and asked me to do it in my own words. But I misunderstood and thought they meant I should do the same lines in my voice, so I recorded them verbatim and sent it back.

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"Of course they meant I should write some jokes and a script of my own. So nice work, idiot. And then Iain obviously went on and got it, and did an amazing job. I wasn’t too bothered about it at the time and then of course Love Island went on to become this huge show and I thought, 'Oh my, that could have paid off my mortgage!'"

Luckily for Eoghan he got a second chance to prove he could do the job when Love Island Australia came calling. "ITV told the Aussies they liked me and maybe they could give me a go. Luckily the audition went well this time!"

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Love Island Australia starts on ITV2 on Monday 15th June at 9pm. To find out what else is on in the mean time, check out our TV Guide.

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