Love Island's Abigail Rawlings wants to 'start again' as she ditches the UK

Love Island star Abigail Rawlings has packed up and ditched the UK for a "new start" in Los Angeles, after leaving the villa in 2021. The tattoo artist was paired up with Toby Aromolaran in the seventh series of ITV's reality dating show, when she entered on day 24.

But he dumped her when he met Mary Bedford in Casa Amor, with Abi recoupling with Dale Mehmet. They were dumped from the villa on day 42, with Abi revealing two weeks after the series ended that she'd got back with her ex, David Aboro Fitzpatrick, and they were living together.

However, Abi appears to be single again, having moved stateside to begin her adventure in the US. She's shared her journey on Instagram, posting a series of snaps showing off her new life in LA.

Abi, 31, wrote: "So today is officially my third week living in LA.. i’ll be dead honest and admit it’s been way more challenging than I ever expected it to be. I haven’t been posting much on the grid cause honestly it’s been mainly pretty boring life stuff, tryna get set up in a new country ain’t no joke.

"I mean literally no one said it was gonna be easy.. but FECK America why you gotta make everything so dam tricky?? ahahah." She continued: "I’d say I’ve spent majority of my time here so far feeling overwhelmed and stressed lol.

"But as of yesterday, I finally got my SSN number through (something I discovered you can’t do anything without it here) so now I can finally make a start on finding my own little apartment and create my own little safe space to start building my foundations for my new lil dream LA life. But regardless of how hard it’s been to adjust so far, I’m still unbelievably grateful for this opportunity to start again and even more grateful for the beautiful souls I’m so lucky to have in my life that love and support me endlessly."

The star revealed in April she had lined up a job at Sashatattooing Gallery in the city, a female owned studio. Abi will also be doing guest slots at Be More You, another tattoo parlour in LA.

Abi thanked the owners of her new studios, saying she would "forever be so unbelievably grateful for you guys helping make this wild opportunity of starting my new lil dream life in LA possible." She also explained how she made her dream of living in Los Angeles come true, saying she "girl bossed so hard I somehow manifested my dream life into my reality."

Abi added: "For 8 months solid, I visualised myself sitting in this exact spot whilst doing my admin work .. and now here I am sitting in that spot today. Whatever goal you’re tryna achieve right now, just a lil reminder that you’ve absolutely got this."

She also posted a video telling her followers how the move caused "new heights to my stress levels". One of her hashtags on the post said she had an O-1B visa.

This kind of visa is for "individuals who have extraordinary ability in the arts or have demonstrated extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry". They can work in the US on the visa, which is a "nonimmigrant" category, with dual intent - this means applicants can pursue a green card at the same time granting them permanent residency.

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