Strutting into the 2019 Love Island villa in a tight white £75 dress from Asos, with mischief, fame and fortune in mind, Maura Higgins became the fledgling ITV show’s ultimate bombshell.

Loud-mouthed, unapologetic and highly ambitious, Maura had no problem sabotaging fellow contestants by stealing their men or doing whatever she could to get to the final.

In the end she finished fourth – but no matter. The relatively new TV show hadn’t seen anyone as single-minded as her in its then-four-year run, and producers rubbed their hands with glee as she proved a ratings goldmine.

Fast-forward seven years and Storm Maura – having blown itself out in the UK after various appearances on reality TV failed to launch her into the small screen A-list – is now rumbling across the Atlantic as she doggedly pursues her lifelong dream of cracking the US.

Those who know her say that the 35-year-old Irish model, also known for her 2024 appearance on I’m A Celebrity and for once dating reality star and former Strictly contestant Pete Wicks, is intent on becoming ‘bigger than Kim Kardashian’.

Unlikely as it sounds, I’m told that she’s fast making a name for herself on the US version of Strictly, Dancing With The Stars, which she’s currently filming in LA. Partnered with pro-dancer Mark Ballas, the son of Strictly’s judge Shirley Ballas, Maura topped the leaderboard in week four and is now tipped to lift the coveted glitterball.

In fact she is working so hard, onlookers have voiced concerns about her weight, and she recently sustained a neck injury in her bid to perfect the tango, collapsing to the floor in agony. Judge Bruno Tonioli, himself a recent US import having left Strictly in 2022, has said he’s ‘never seen anything like her’. Americans famously love a hard worker.

‘When she is not training, she is out networking or promoting herself in the US media,’ a show insider told me.

‘It’s blood, sweat and tears, but without any tears.’

‘She’s throwing everything she has at Dancing With The Stars [DWTS]. She is determined to win and will tread on anyone who stands in her way.

‘Maura’s been all smiles and has done a particularly good job of wooing the show’s bosses, but behind the scenes she is absolutely ruthless. Most people stab you in the back; Maura takes a chainsaw to your face. She must have the sharpest elbows in Hollywood and is on the pathway to becoming the next Kim Kardashian.’

Maura will be highly flattered by the comparison: she’s long been an admirer of the original reality TV megastar turned multimillionaire beauty mogul. She often quotes her in interviews, and was spotted in the VIP area of Wimbledon over the summer hanging out with the Kardashians’ longtime hairstylist, Chris Appleton. She’s also caught the eye of streaming sites Hulu and Disney Plus, home to the hit series The Kardashians. They have signed her to present a reboot of the hit classic Blind Date, which so famously resurrected the career of singer Cilla Black. The show is due to air next year and producers are convinced that Maura’s wit and humour will make her the natural successor to Cilla.

But while her particular brand of Irish cheekiness and acerbic put-downs is making her plenty of fans, it is also incurring the wrath of others.

In May, she went on popular television show E! News where she bad-mouthed DWTS professional dancer Gleb Savchenko – supposedly out of loyalty to her friend the Baywatch actress Brooks Nader, who previously dated him. Maura told the programme she’d happily be partnered with anyone but Gleb as she didn’t like ‘the way he speaks about women’.

The jibe made her extremely unpopular backstage: ‘The way she trashed Gleb in public was absolutely brutal and she knew it would help raise her profile,’ a source told me.

‘Maura knows how to play the game and how to play people, but she’s put a lot of noses out of joint.’

But Maura’s intense ambition to get to the top is of little surprise to those who know her.

Growing up in the small town of Ballymahon in County Longford, where her beloved ‘Mammy’ still lives, Maura left school aged 16 to become a hairdresser but soon wanted more.

Aged 17, she became a ‘Monster’ girl – a promotional girl, hired by the drinks brand Monster Energy, to stand around in skimpy outfits at major sports events handing out merchandise and flirting with guests.

‘I loved it, I totally loved it,’ she once said, but the job did not provide the riches she craved.

When her childhood sweetheart, and then fiance, did not support her new role, she broke up with him, and at one point was so poor she nearly ended up homeless.

‘I was really struggling; I needed whatever job I could get at that point,’ she told relationship expert Paul Brunson’s tell-all podcast, We Need To Talk.

‘When me and my ex broke up I struggled to pay for the house, car... I needed money.

‘There were many winters where I wore four pairs of fluffy socks and dressing gowns, and had condensation coming out of my mouth because I couldn’t afford heating.’

Still living in Ballymahon, she called her father, Seamus Higgins, for help.

‘He just said: “You’ll be all right”,’ she revealed.

It was a remark, she said, that sparked a fierce determination to be successful using nothing but her own wits.

She explained: ‘I went into an “I’ll show him”. I remember thinking, “I don’t need your help”.’

Another man she added to her ‘I’ll show you list’ was a mystery boyfriend of three years, based in LA and whose betrayal prompted her to go on Love Island.

She revealed how she’d unearthed inappropriate messages from various women on his phone and decided to wreak the ultimate revenge – by hooking up with lots of naked-chested men on national TV.

She proved an instant hit as a ‘bombshell’ – a contestant thrown in to break couples up.

On her first day she threatened to come between the series’ sweethearts boxer Tommy Fury, brother of Tyson, and Molly-Mae Hague – although she ultimately failed. The couple now share two children – and a vast fortune in excess of £20million – together.

Instead, she elbowed the unassuming British Airways hostess, Amy Hart, out of the way and stole her partner, dancer Curtis Pritchard.

Life after Love Island for Maura initially proved promising. Despite splitting with Pritchard after just eight months, she signed a £500,000 deal with clothing brand Boohoo, a £500,000 deal with lingerie giant Ann Summers, a £250,000 partnership with tan company Bellamianta, and £150,000 to appear on ITV’s Dancing On Ice.

But after four years on the influencer circuit, her attempts to break through to the next stratum of fame seemed to have stalled, and she was mostly confined to going on brand trips with the likes of sportswear brand Alo, Primark or eBay.

Although she walked the National Television Awards red carpet and made sporadic appearances on ITV daytime show This Morning, it was not the breakthrough she had dreamt of.

Pulling herself out of near oblivion, she signed with InterTalent Rights Group and was assigned Talia Salomon as a manager.

Talia had previously looked after pop band The Black Eyed Peas on their world tour.

Together, they set their sights on America and Talia, insiders say, ‘revolves her whole life around work and Maura’.

She later became host of the US Love Island spin-off before returning to the UK for a stint on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity in 2024.

The primetime terrestrial show saw an average 7million viewers tune in each evening and Maura was sure this would be the programme to properly launch her. But when she finished a disappointing seventh, trailing behind influencer GK Barry, Strictly judge Oti Mabuse and eventual winner McFly singer and guitarist Danny Jones, it was a harsh reminder for Maura that British audiences still needed some convincing.

She did garner a slew of media coverage two months after the show aired when she was seen kissing Danny – who has a wife and young son – at the 2025 Brit Awards afterparty in London. But in truth she came out of the incident with her reputation tarnished rather than burnished.

While he patched things up with his heartbroken wife of ten years, model Georgia Horsley, Maura escaped to the US. It was there, finally, that things took off, when she landed a role on the American version of Celebrity Traitors – filmed in the usual location in Scotland’s Ardross Castle.

A cleverly calculated ‘showmance’ with a muscly Love Island US star, Rob Rausch, once a snake wrangler from Alabama, saw the pair reach the final – where she lost out to him as he revealed himself to be a Traitor.

When it comes to real romance, Maura insists she has been ‘celibate’ for a year and a half – since her short fling with The Only Way Is Essex star Pete Wicks, who is now dating Olivia Attwood.

The women followed similar career trajectories, starting out as Monster girls together.

Olivia was on Love Island two years before Maura and they signed with the same talent agency – allegations of ‘copycat’ behaviour flew around from Olivia’s camp before Maura dropped the agency and shifted to the US. While she may not have found love across the pond, she is leaning into her Irish roots – a nation for which there is a lot of love in the US.

For Dedication Night (a themed episode in which contestants choose who or what they are dancing in honour of) canny Maura dedicated her dance to Ireland. Stunning in a floor-length green and orange gown, split to the thigh and plunged to the navel she secured her highest score of the series so far and unleashed a torrent of pro-Irish American votes.

When she’s not making friends – or enemies – on the dance floor, she’s been spotted on the red carpet at the Golden Globes in a £2,143 gown by designer Marmar Halim and attended Cannes Film Festival with a role in the Irish comedy-drama, The Spin.

Earlier this week, she appeared at the Victoria’s Secret catwalk show in a strapless latex catsuit as an ambassador for the lingerie company while fans screamed her name.

And in a true full-circle moment, last month it was announced she would be co-hosting the US version of I’m A Celebrity. That’s not something even Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, long-term hosts of the UK version, can boast.

She’s next back on Dancing With The Stars on Tuesday.

It’s going to be Halloween themed Horror Night. No doubt Maura will be bringing her own brand of terror to the dance floor – and anyone brave enough to stand in her formidable path.