Yahoo Finance Love Island USA Alum Mackenzie Dipman Is the Next Bombshell to Enter the Villa: 'I Have a Hit List'
A familiar face is about to become the next bombshell.
Love Island USA season 4 is gaining a veteran Islander — Mackenzie Dipman. The season 2 alum is about to reenter the villa for another attempt to find love. Why? "I'm still single. I think that's the obvious answer," she tells PEOPLE exclusively.
During her season of Love Island, Mackenzie spent the majority of her 26-day run coupled up with Connor Trott. When Trott left the show later in the season, he and Mackenzie reunited — pursuing an off-screen relationship until they announced their split in March 2021.
Single again, Mackenzie, 25, already knows of a few Islanders she's eager to meet when she arrives on Wednesday night's episode — even if they've already coupled up.
"It's not like I'm walking in and there's no one that's really caught my eye," Dipman says, though she didn't name any of the current men that interest her. "It is a little tough because I don't know who's going to be there right in the moment. It's possible that someone that I'm interested in isn't even in the villa anymore because things change so quickly."
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Peacock
Regardless of who she pursues, Dipman says she'll use her past Love Island experience in assessing her options — instead of clinging to initial attraction. "There are definitely a few guys that I have my eye on. I know, though, from my own experience, that people that I was with on the show appeared very differently on TV from how I knew them in real life, so I'm trying to keep an open mind about everybody."
Dipman is expecting her second run on the Peacock (formerly CBS) series to look much different from her first time. In the two years since she first stepped foot in the villa, Dipman has experienced the "luxuries of getting older," particularly, being more confident in her image.
"For me personally, just considering my journey the first time, I feel like we all grow and we change a lot. It's been two years. And I know that the person that I am walking into this experience now, two years later, is going to have a very different experience from the person that walked into the villa the first time," she says.
"I'm just really excited to enjoy it in a way that I don't think I did the first time. Just being able to just freely experiment, try new things, have fun, meet new people. I think that's just one of the luxuries of getting a little bit older is that you just kind of learn to let go of certain insecurities. I just think it's going to be a lot more fun this time around, a lot less pressure."
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She also suspects she'll be dishing out her fair share of advice.
"I definitely like to give advice whether people ask for it or not," she says with a laugh. "But I do hope that they look to me as like a big sister or like someone that has been through this process and really use me as a resource as to understanding what's going to happen next. Because I think we all thought we knew what was going to happen and I think that all of us were very shocked by how different our expectation of how things were going to be and what actually transpired after the show."
Case in point: She wants the ladies to be asking different questions. "I think that they should just be asking, 'What does your next six months look like?' And 'Do you see yourself relocating if we don't live in the same place? And if not, what is your comfortability with long-distance?' These are questions they need to ask. It's not like, 'Do you want to have kids one day?' Think shorter-term."
Known the first time around for not holding back with her thoughts and feelings, Mackenzie says that's one thing about her that hasn't changed.
"I love to call a guy out for mistreating a lady! It's my favorite thing. You can expect me to be doing that this season as well," she says. "I've got a list. My hit list is about as long as my crush list."
Love Island USA airs new episodes Tuesday through Sunday on Peacock.
