Ex-Castleford Tigers star Jacques O’Neill confirms next move after Love Island exit

Jacques O’Neill is currently one of the most googled names in the British Isles.

That is hardly surprising given the fact that Love Island is watched by, on average, 3.5 million viewers per night with O’Neill one of those that was thrust into the limelight towards the end of his stay in the villa.

The former Castleford Tigers forward was coupled up with Welsh beauty Paige Thorne, but struggled towards the end of his time in the villa, bursting into tears and going ahead with an emotional exit despite Love Island bosses bringing in their welfare officer in a bid to help O’Neill through the hard time.

Since exiting, O’Neill has been inundated with support on social media and has now reached over 800,000 followers on social media giant Instagram – an incredible number considering he was under five figures before going onto the hit ITV2 show.

Such a popular figure will always be given offers to appear on other reality shows, but O’Neill has turned down the offer of £60,000 to go on Celebs Go Dating, according to the Daily Mail.

Instead, the 23-year-old has vowed to wait for Paige on the outside, despite the Welsh woman getting close to bombshell Adam Collard – the man who had sparked O’Neill’s ire to begin with which led to his eventual downfall.

There is also a chance that the Cumbrian could return to rugby league, with O’Neill returning to training at Castleford Tigers last week to check in on his former teammates as well as making an appearance at the West Yorkshire club’s fixture against Warrington Wolves at the weekend.

Castleford head coach Lee Radford had remained coy when asked about a potential return for O’Neill, but a deal for 2023 could well be struck even though the 23-year-old will obviously be inundated with offers outside of the sport.

However, O’Neill’s next move looks to be in the ‘influencer’ mode, with the Cumbrian revealing on his Instagram profile a new link up with a public relations company alongside Scott Thomas – who himself was a Love Island contestant a number of years ago.

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A post shared by Jacques O’Neill (@jacques9oneill_)

‘The Social PR’ claims it is the UK’s ‘fastest growing PR agency’ with a specialty in:
▪️𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫/ 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
▪️𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
▪️𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
▪️𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
▪️𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲

So it appears for the time being at least, that O’Neill is heading away from rugby league.