Love Island Malta winners Chelsea Bagnall-Falzon and Allen Piscopo have announced their split over social media, less than two weeks after the reality show’s finale.

“This was not an easy decision to come to, however, life inside the villa is very different from the life we both live outside,” Allen wrote in an Instagram story.

Allen and Chelsea won Malta’s first edition of the international franchise after spending six weeks in a villa, competing with other coupled contestants for the top spot.

The winners, decided by a public vote, walked away from their experience with €20,000 and a trip to a Cyprus resort. Over 55,450 votes were submitted through the Love Island Malta app.

Allen did not share details on the break-up except for saying it was a mutual decision. He also asked people to respect their decision and wished Chelsea “nothing but the best”.

Comments on social media about the news varied between sad surprise and sarcasm as most users joked about the veracity of their relationship.

“In that case, give me the tickets to Cyprus,” one person commented on social media.

Richard Warr, the father of another contestant, Nicola, said that the holiday should go to the second place winners.

"I'm sorry to hear of Allen and Chelsea's break up but they should offer the Cyprus trip to Sven and Gabbi in my humble opinion, who placed second," he wrote on Facebook. 

Chelsea has yet to update her fans on social media with her perspective on the break-up.

This is not the first time Love Island winners have broken up following their crowning. Earlier this year, the show’s 2022 UK winners Ekin-Su Culculoglu and Davide Sanclimenti decided to split up less than a year after leaving the villa.

Love Island Malta, a local iteration of the UK-led reality franchise, follows "single and ready to mingle" contestants, better known as "islanders", as they competed for the prize money by coupling up and surviving public vote eliminations. 

The "islanders" had to live in a villa and spend most of their time together chatting, gossiping and taking part in challenges.

Throughout their stay, cameras and microphones all over the villa picked up everything they said and did.

Chelsea, a 30-year-old beauty therapist, originally coupled with Nate Caruana, who was the first male contestant to be voted off the show. 

Later, she coupled up with Allen, also a cabin crew member and environmental scientist, who describes himself as a “charismatic introvert”.