What'd your, what'd your family say when they found out?

Oh my gosh, it was so cool getting to talk to my mom.

So my mom and I have a lot of little inside things, and one of them is that she calls me her awesome girl.

And so, yeah, she like, she said that to me, you know.

She was like, "I'm so happy for you, my awesome girl," and it brought me back to being a kid.

So they send you, the producers send you, like, footage and go, "You have to watch this before you go into the villa."

Yeah, I watch a secret, a link.

Usually it's the finished episode, but sometimes, like let's say I'm doing After Sun or something, it's just clips.

I know

... or they talk about their frustrations with, "Well, why didn't they hire an experienced trained actor?" I'm like, "Well, I am an experienced trained actor." But I had that same frustration where I was pounding the pavement, going to open calls.

I knew no one.

I had no connections.

I had no representation.

I didn't really know what I was doing.

I was just at the same time trying to make money bartending and doing sketch videos and things like that to try to build a resume but continue to build experience out of school.

Okay.

[laughs]

Yeah.

And I, honestly, a lot of these reunions now with these islanders, we have so many islanders.

I think we have 30 plus returning islanders to this reunion.

Like, does that part feel real yet, that you've-

I don't know if it feels real, but I did, um, just before I came out here to New York, I managed to see a billboard that they had put up that had my graphic from the show and picture of me and my name, and I just kept staring at it and I could not believe-

What is it about this show that you think has resonated with millions and millions of people over the last

few years? I think we see 24 hours with these islanders, which is more than you see on any other show of its kind.

And so after that much time, you see them at every different emotion, and you can't help but fall in love with them.

Yeah.

I know you can't really give it away, but any

scoop from the reunion? Are there any breakups, any

new couples? Oh, yeah.

There's some breakups, unexpected hookups.

Sure

... that this is our thing.

Um, and then we realized after getting the numbers back that it was just huge, and that season seven, same thing, even bigger.

Season eight, even bigger, which is really crazy to think, 'cause you f- you almost feel like how, how much bigger could it possibly get? But it's so cool because it feels like this online, like this community of people, and everyone's watching and tuning in every day, and they're making these hilarious memes and edits, and they're all so invested.

And then, you know, you'll be scrolling on TikTok, and you'll see all these groups of people are going live and breaking down everything in the episode.

And it's really, really cool to be a fly on the wall and just see how people are responding to everything, and it's really kind of a, a nice pat on the back, uh, to see that response because the people who make this show are working so hard all the time, and it's, it's lovely to see them kind of, the fruits of their labors, so to speak.

First of all, where are you from, and is that an influence on your desire to have a sandwich shop or not?

Um, I'm from Florida, and my mom is probably the best cook/sandwich maker I've ever met, and I think that my love for eating sandwiches is definitely something that motivated me to be a part of this business.

Has it taught you personally anything about gender roles? Or is there anything that you feel like is so prevalent on the show? It is

very much gendered.

It is very binary in that.

And I always feel like I'd love to see it break out of that.

And I don't know how it will, but I would love to see that.

Even though it is so gendered, it is so binary, one thing that I really enjoy is when someone decides they wanna stay single or they wanna choose themselves.

And I also love that even within all of that, the show remains very sex positive.

It's been big for so long, but I think recently the waters have changed and I think it's really cool to watch.

Do you, before you get there, do you know anything about the contestants, or do you only find out when you get there? It's like you don't know anything about the new crop?

No.

They, and a lot of times they don't necessarily know until pretty close to them shooting their intro packages, like, who it's gonna be because they're piecing together, you know, if they put this person in, well, then they maybe shouldn't put this person in.

They're too s- you know, something like that, and they have this way of figuring out what the best combination of people's gonna be.

So they don't tell me until the intro packages are being shot 'cause then once that's happening, they're pretty sure.

Coming from someone who has the

theI mean, I understand that influencing and I, I g- I get it.

That's jobs, right? It's, I get it.

What have your reactions been to all the comparisons between what you went through and what's happening now playing out on Summer House?

I think there's some similar- similarities.

I think there's a lot of differences as well, obviously.

I think when we, you know, we started putting out, like, the teasers for the Sonic commercials that Ciara and I have done together, um, people were saying, "Yeah, but it's not the same." I'm like, "It doesn't have to be the same."

Um, Ariana, have you talked to Elandria and Nick since they're coming up on their one-year anniversary? And were you surprised they've been able to make it since leaving the villa?

villa?I saw them at a party, uh, I think it was the Vanity Fair pre-Oscar party, and they were being the cutest.

Nick, of course, was, like, helping her, carrying, um, her bag.

And honestly, it was really nice to just get to catch up with them a little bit.

... and then Games

... yeah, then Games.

And Games was insane.

It was...

I was there every single day hosting challenges.

And challenges, when you watch the show, it looks like it happened in maybe, like, two hours.

No, that shit's like 12 hours sometimes.

Was, was it surreal the first time you got into the villa and you were like, "Wow, somehow I went from being a fan, and now I'm, like, s- somehow in charge of this"?

Totally.

And so, but in that moment I just had this thought, like this, like, "Go do it.

This is, like, a time to do it." Um, and so I went into the bathroom at Tom Tom.

I went into one of the stalls.

Um, he had not changed the passcode on his phone, so I knew...

And that's the other thing is, like, we knew each other's passcodes.

We knew each other's...

Mm-hmm.