The Cabins: Ep1 on ITV2. Sarah and Charlotte chat about their dating and relationship past. (ITV)
The LGBT+ stars of ITV’s Love Island replacement dating show The Cabins have praised the channel for helping to “normalise” same-sex love.
The show, which began airing on 4 January, sees singles move into log cabins in the woods together for 24 hours, before choosing whether to stay together.
While Love Island has been criticised over the years for its lack of LGBT+ representation, The Cabins featured same-sex couple Sarah Hutchinson and Charlotte Taundry, who have been inseparable ever since.
Hutchinson told Metro: “We actually love the fact that it was normalised, they didn’t make a big deal out of us being a gay couple.
“That wasn’t any headlines, that wasn’t… it was just normalised. It made me really happy.
“Everything else about the show, as well, I keep saying about the fact that everyone has tattoos, there’s such a big variation and it’s just normal life and dating, how everything normally is.”
As well as praising ITV, Hutchinson also said that the reaction from viewers has been “absolutely amazing”.
Taundry said that both of them have accumulated “quite a few new followers”, and they are considering starting a YouTube channel together.
Now the two women are living together, she said: “We settled into like normal life real quickly. We’re like a married couple at night, we sit in bed, and will be like gushy, and romantic to each other.
“We’re watching TV in matching pyjamas, we turn the TV off and go to sleep. We’ve just settled into normal life straightaway.”
Hutchinson added: “Any future plans that we’ve made, whenever we speak about it, it involves each other, it’s as if we’ve been together our whole lives.”
The Cabins was filmed in the UK earlier in 2020, and was able to go ahead after ITV put strict coronavirus safety protocols in place for filming.
All contestants had to isolate at a hotel and receive negative COVID test results before filming. The minimal crew all had to wear face masks and were regularly temperature checked during production.