Tyra & Kale Dish On Their Love Island Australia Win, Moving In Together & How They’ll Spend The $50k

If there's one reason why we all kept tuning into this season of Love Island Australia, it's because of two people: Tyra Johannes and Kale Roberts. After a rather tumultuous start to their relationship, the two quickly became one of fan's favourite couples in the house thanks to their cute-as-a-button romance and sheer authenticity. Unsurprisingly, they managed to snag the fan votes and were officially crowned the winners of Love Island Australia 2023 on Monday. Refinery29 Australia sat down with the winners in a tell-all interview. The first order of business?

Finding out if the couple was still together. "We are," Tyra laughs.

With the finale being recorded back in August, the two have been forced to keep their thriving relationship under wraps for four months now. "It's been months of hiding, lots of UberEats, lots of movie nights," Tyra tells Refinery29 Australia. The couple says they've been keeping their relationship under wraps in a bunch of ways, including having one designated person (Kale) do their grocery shops.

"I've been going to Coles by myself!" Kale explains when asked about how they've managed to keep their relationship secret this whole time. "I have to wait in the car," Tyra adds. "By the end of it, we were nearly brawling because I was like, 'Kale, I can come into Coles with you'. He was like, 'Tyra, No!'".

The two have also had to have some serious words with their family, with Tyra telling Refinery29 Australia that her mum almost blew their cover. "People started getting onto my mum," she shares, saying that she gave explicit instructions for her mum to get off Instagram and Facebook and to "stop liking things".

While it might seem challenging to keep your budding relationship secret for four months while seemingly everyone in Australia looks for confirmation that you are, indeed, still together, it wasn't the biggest challenge the pair has had in the last few months. "There were so many birthdays or events and family things — I just wanted to bring him everywhere with me and I couldn't," Tyra says. Kale echoes this, saying "It'd be my housemates of close friends' birthday that I just wanted to bring Tyra to but she obviously couldn't come."

Understandably, the two are ecstatic that they no longer need to navigate secret grocery missions or patrol their parents' social media habits. "It was good we didn't have to wait much longer, otherwise [Tyra] might have strangled me," Kale laughs. "It's really refreshing that we don't need to hide away anymore."

As we chat, Tyra and Kale won't stop looking at each other, holding hands, or giggling with each other, seemingly having secret conversations with each other without uttering a word. Simply put, they make this girl feel incredibly single. Unsurprisingly, the couple has big things planned in 2024, including a big move.

The couple, who live in the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, has currently had to endure a two or three-hour drive, each way, to see each other. But as of next year, this will all be changing, with the couple revealing their plans for the future. "We're looking at moving in together," Kale says. While Tyra jokes with Kale that they should get a cat, he immediately shuts it down. "The cat's a no-go... but you can have one fish," he jokes with her.

As for what they plan on spending their $25,000 prize money on? Kale plans on paying off some debts, with the two planning on going on a holiday somewhere. "We might have a cocktail instead of a beer," he jokes.

Safe to say, the two had a rather tumultuous start to their relationship. After going on a date with both Tyra and her best friend in the villa, Nakia Pires, Kale eventually recoupled with Nakia. While I — and many other viewers at home — were punching the air at Kale's decision, they share that their situation was a bit more complex than it appeared on screen.

"See, I really liked Kale. I liked him a lot after our first date," Tyra explains. "But it was hearing things from Nakia that she was his number one [that put me off]... I don't want to compete for a boy, so I was like, I'm gonna let her have this one, I'm gonna step back. But it was sad because I really liked him from the first date and I was really disappointed when he didn't pick me."

But from Kale's perspective, things were very different. "See, I didn't know much of that at the time until really watching the show," he says. "Tyra was with someone, they seemed like they were getting on pretty good. And Nakia was single and a bit more direct. It just seemed a bit like the easier route, without stepping on toes or sending anyone home."

After Kale was dumped, he was given one last chance to return to the villa, of which he happily did with Tyra. Together, the two continued to reign as one of the strongest couples in the villa, eventually being handed the title of King and Queen. "All of that happened for a reason," Tyra says, with Kale agreeing: "We're both glad it went the way it did."

The way their relationship went down has prompted a lot of questions about where allegiances lay in a villa — where everyone is there to find love. But when it comes down to an imagined 'girl code' or 'boy code', both Tyra and Kale reject that that existed in the villa. Instead, they argued that they're both "friendship code" people, and that they just act in ways that make them a good person or a good friend. However, they say that's not the case for everyone.

"Not everyone has a friendship code," Tyra says. "I don't think Nakia would have done the same thing for me that I did for her."

Tyra explains that watching the show back after it aired has put a lot of "things in perspective", with Kale sharing that being able to see everything that unfolded in the villa "shines a bit of a bright light" into their fellow Islanders. "Looking back at how good I was to someone, who I could just see wasn't the same to me," Tyra says, adding that she wanted to shake the younger version of her in the villa.

"It took some time when I first got back, for like three days, Tyra couldn't really be fully herself with me or comfortable or open because she was so worried about Nakia's view on it all, so that was really annoying," Kale says. "When Tyra finally came around, she was like, why was I being like that."

When it comes to why they think they won Love Island Australia 2023, the couple both agree that it was because they were authentic and relatable. "I think we were just chill. We didn't fight, we didn't argue, we weren't in drama," Kale says.

Most people would agree, there's no other couple that was more deserving of winning this season of Love Island Australia. Prepare to watch your new favourite couple get loved up officially in the real world.