Maya Jama reflects on 2019 breakup with Stormzy

The ‘Love Island’ host and the British rapper dated for four years before their split in 2019

Maya Jama has reflected on the public’s reaction to her past relationship with Stormzy.

The Love Island host, 28, previously dated the British rapper, 29, for four years, before calling it quits in 2019. In a new interview with British Vogue, Jama opened up about the cultural “importance” of her relationship with the “Vossi Bop” rapper, who is of Ghanaian descent.

“None of us really knew the level of importance it held to a certain group of people, us being together,” the TV presenter, who is half Swedish and half Somali, said. “We were both super ambitious. We were both from similar upbringings and we were both just little grafters that have made something good of ourselves.

“It was lovely when it was lovely, and then you move,” she added.

Back in October 2014, the former couple first met at the Red Bull Culture Clash festival and began dating the following January. Fans were devastated when the couple split in 2019, with one person writing on Twitter at the time: “Nah man Stormzy and Maya Jama can’t have split up.”

“I need proof that Stormzy and Maya Jama have split because I refuse to believe it and if they have I’m so done with love,” another said.

It was speculated at the time that Jama and Stormzy – whose real name is Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr – ended their relationship to focus on their growing careers.

This isn’t the first time Jama has opened up about her relationship with Stormzy. Earlier this year, the presenter shared details about her experience with the then-unknown rapper. “We were so young when we met, just beginning our careers,” Jama told The Sunday Times in January. “I was starting at MTV. He’d not even released a single at that point. We were just little babies.”

Jama said that, as Stormzy’s fame had grown, she worked hard to be known as more than just his girlfriend. “I’m not naive to the fact that when you are a woman in the industry, most of the things that people want to talk about are your relationships,” she said. “It’s different for men. I’d seen that happen to other people.”

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“I don’t think either of us knew it was going to be such a big thing,” she added. “We were just: we’re young and in love and we’re going to go for it and work really hard. We’re just together. We never really did red carpets. We didn’t do any of that stuff.”

Just one year after their breakup, Jama spoke out against the public’s reaction to her breakup with Stormzy, which she described as “sexist”.

“I used to think that sexism was dying out, and then now and recently as well, especially, I’m like, it’s still so loud,” the broadcaster and DJ said on the BBC’s The Reality Tea podcast. “A guy can do one thing and get one reaction and a girl can do something and be like the wicked witch of the world.”

As she explained how people treated her differently post-breakup because she was a woman, Jama shared: “You just have to rise above it a little bit and just take it as it is. And try and speak out as much as you can. Like hang on a minute, question your actions.

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“And I think for men as well, just to be like, would I have the same reaction if she was a boy and had a willy maybe not.”

However, the Bristol-born presenter later revealed on the TTYA Talks podcast that she felt “a new lease of excitement” after their breakup. Jama began dating NBA player Ben Simmons in spring 2021. The two were engaged by December that year, but called off their engagement in August 2022.

Meanwhile, Stormzy has previously admitted that his breakup with Jama showed him that he was still “just a boy”.

“I’d never experienced a break-up and the feelings that come with a breakup,” he said in a GQ interview last November. “And I never wanted to ever be in a position again where I felt what I was feeling. Because it showed me that I was a boy. And I do not want to go any further as a boy. I’ve seen how that manifests in other people. And I don’t want to be like that.”

During an appearance on Louis Theroux’s series Interviews, the “Own It” rapper described their split as his “biggest loss” and revealed that the breakup was “probably the biggest catalyst” for his growth as a person.

“It was like, okay, you made a mistake and you lose someone you loved, someone you cared for, someone who is special to you,” Stormzy said. “That’s probably the biggest loss a man can have, isn’t it? Away from someone passing away, that’s the biggest loss you can have.”

Elsewhere in her interview with British Vogue, Jama said that she is still hopeful about love, with the presenter revealing that she wants to find “actual love”.

“That’s all I ever want. Just real love. I want a best friend that I’m in love with. And I have had that before,” she said.