Ruben Dias’ girlfriend is Maya Jama — the Bristol-born television presenter, radio DJ, entrepreneur, and actress, best known as the host of ITV2’s Love Island since 2023. The couple first met at the MTV European Music Awards (EMAs) in Manchester in November 2024, began dating privately in December 2024, and publicly confirmed their relationship in April 2025 when they were photographed kissing at KSI’s Baller League event at the Copper Box Arena in east London. As of March 2026, Maya Jama and Ruben Dias are firmly established as one of the most high-profile celebrity couples in the United Kingdom, regularly appearing together on social media, at football matches, and at major events including the BRIT Awards 2026 at Co-op Live in Manchester. They share a £4 million home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire — the exclusive village that has long been favoured by Manchester City and Manchester United players. Maya is 31 years old, Ruben is 28, giving the couple a three-year age gap. This complete guide covers everything you need to know about Maya Jama: her background and early life, her career, her relationship timeline with Ruben Dias, where they live, her previous relationships, her net worth, and her 2026 projects.
Who Is Maya Jama?
Background and Early Life
Maya Indea Jama was born on 14 August 1994 in Bristol, making her 31 years old in 2026. Her heritage is a striking mix — her mother Sadie is of Swedish descent and her father is originally from Somalia. Maya has described growing up in Bristol as both formative and at times difficult: her father was frequently incarcerated for violence-related offences during her childhood, and she cut ties with him at the age of 12. The loss of a close friend, Rico Gordon, who was killed in a gang-related shooting when he was 21 years old, further shaped the resilience and determination that drives her. Far from hiding these difficult chapters, Maya has spoken about them in interviews with characteristic honesty, most notably in a 2021 Marie Claire profile in which she credited her ability to process her father’s absence through a kind of defensive humour as a significant factor in her psychological resilience.
As a child, Maya harboured ambitions of becoming an actress. At 15, she auditioned for the groundbreaking British teen drama Skins, which was shot in Bristol and specifically recruited local young people to achieve authentic casting. Maya reached the final stage of the casting process — the last two candidates — before losing the role to another girl. Describing the experience in a 2026 Variety interview, she recalled: “I was convinced that was going to be my big break. And then I didn’t get it and I was like, ‘Forget acting. I’m never doing this again.'” She moved to London at 16 to pursue a career in media, launching a YouTube channel at that age and being hired as a host by JumpOff.TV at 18. Her instinct to move to London and start immediately rather than waiting proved well-founded: within five years she was presenting for MTV and hosting on Rinse FM. Her accent, she has admitted, was something she used to obscure — telling people she was Spanish and Jamaican rather than from Bristol to avoid being judged by her origins. That period of self-invention gives way in her adult public persona to a grounded and specific pride in where she comes from.
Physical Appearance and Profile
Maya Jama stands at 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 8 inches (approximately 171–173 cm), a height that gives her a distinctive presence both on screen and at events. Her appearance — she is of mixed Somali and Swedish-Scottish heritage — has made her one of the most photographed and instantly recognisable faces in British media. She has been on the cover of British Vogue twice, featured in numerous major fashion campaigns, and taken over from Kate Moss as Rimmel London’s brand ambassador — a transition that signalled her arrival in the first tier of British female celebrity. She is frequently cited in fashion round-ups as one of the most stylish public figures in the UK, and her Love Island villa outfits — ranging from high-end designer pieces to striking custom creations — have become a social media event in their own right with each episode.
Maya Jama’s Career
Radio: The Foundation Years
Maya Jama’s professional media career began in radio, and the skills she developed as a broadcaster across her radio years — quick thinking, spontaneity, the ability to be entertaining and warm without visual support, comfort with live unscripted moments — are the foundations of everything she does on television. She hosted #DriveWithMaya on Rinse FM from 2014 to 2017, building a dedicated listenership and developing the easy conversational chemistry that marks her on-screen work. In 2018 she joined BBC Radio 1 as a presenter, co-presenting Radio 1’s Greatest Hits and then hosting her own show, Maya Jama on BBC Radio 1, until 2020. At Radio 1 she became one of the youngest presenters in the station’s history to be given a solo prime-time show, and the visibility of the role put her in front of a national audience that extended far beyond her previous Rinse FM following.
Her Radio 1 work included celebrated on-air moments with major music artists — interviews and segments that went viral on social media and demonstrated her ability to generate content that worked both in audio and as shareable clips. After leaving Radio 1 in 2020, she has remained a significant presence in British radio culture through her social media and her television work, but the Radio 1 years were the period in which she became a household name for the broadest cross-section of British youth audiences.
Television Career: From MTV to Love Island
Maya’s television career began at MTV and rapidly expanded across a range of formats and channels. She co-presented Trending Live! on 4Music from 2015 to 2017, before landing her first major ITV presenting role on Cannonball in 2017. The Circle on Channel 4 in 2018, which she co-hosted with Alice Levine, introduced her to an audience that had followed the cult reality format — a social media isolation game — and her presenting style was noted for its warmth and lack of condescension toward contestants and format alike. She presented BBC Three’s beauty competition series Glow Up: Britain’s Next Make-Up Star across its third and fourth series. She appeared as a guest panelist on Loose Women and ITV daytime, demonstrating a versatility across live television formats that made her an attractive proposition for major commissioning roles.
The pivotal career move came in 2022 when ITV announced she would become the new host of Love Island, succeeding Laura Whitmore and, before her, the late Caroline Flack. Maya’s first Love Island series was the January 2023 winter edition, and the response was immediately positive — she connected with contestants and viewers with a naturalness and lack of artifice that contrasted favourably with more scripted approaches to the role. Since her debut, she has hosted nine Love Island series, including Love Island All Stars 2026. In 2025 she was also announced as a new judge on The Masked Singer UK alongside Jonathan Ross, Davina McCall, and Mo Gilligan, replacing Rita Ora in the panel lineup. Her earnings from Love Island alone are reported to be approximately £800,000 for the summer series and £800,000 for Love Island All Stars in 2026 — totalling close to £2 million for hosting duties on the ITV show that year, according to industry reports, making her one of the highest-paid presenters on British television.
The Gentlemen: Acting Debut
One of the most significant career milestones of Maya Jama’s 2025-26 period has been her acting debut in the second series of Netflix’s critically acclaimed crime drama The Gentlemen, directed by Guy Ritchie. The show — a continuation and expansion of Ritchie’s original 2019 film — follows aristocrat Eddie Halstead as he navigates the criminal underworld that has entangled his family’s estate. The first season, which starred Theo James and Kaya Scodelario, was a major hit for Netflix and won significant critical praise for its wit, style, and sharp ensemble performances.
Maya confirmed her casting on Instagram in May 2025, posting: “Gassed is an understatement. Only gone and got a little role in one of my favourite series! To work alongside such amazing and accomplished actors who I admire, incredible production and with a legendary director Guy Ritchie is honestly a dream come true.” She filmed her scenes at Badminton House in Gloucestershire and did a proper audition for the role — an audition she described as “scary” given that it represented her first formal acting work since the teenage Skins near-miss. Crucially, she did not have to change her accent for the character, which gave her confidence in the role’s fit. Series two of The Gentlemen is expected to release on Netflix in 2026. Her two-episode appearance is listed on IMDb, and the early reviews of her performance in the show have been positive, suggesting she has the range to develop an acting career alongside her presenting work if she chooses to.
Business Ventures
Beyond broadcasting, Maya Jama has built a range of business ventures that contribute meaningfully to her wealth and public profile. Her skincare brand MIJ Masks was launched in 2021 and is estimated to be worth over £300,000. The brand has grown steadily since launch, reflecting Maya’s profile and the commercial power of her social media following. She is also a co-owner of Sproud, a plant-based milk company that has recently been stocked by Blank Street, a growing premium coffee chain. She runs her own production company, MIJ Productions, and has launched MIJ & Co. as a broader commercial entity. She has a six-figure brand partnership with Beauty Works hair extensions — a deal she signed at a similar stage of her career to the one Molly-Mae Hague used to launch her own hair extensions empire. Her Rimmel London ambassadorship, taking over from Kate Moss, is one of the most prestigious beauty brand associations in British media and represents a significant endorsement of her position as a style icon. Together these business activities, alongside her television earnings, contribute to an estimated net worth of between £2 million and £3 million as of 2026.
Ruben Dias and Maya Jama: The Relationship Timeline
How They Met
Ruben Dias and Maya Jama first met at the MTV European Music Awards (EMAs) in Manchester on 3 November 2024. The EMAs, broadcast annually from a different European city, were held in Manchester that year, and both Dias — who attended as a prominent local sporting celebrity — and Jama attended. Witnesses described the pair chatting and appearing very comfortable with each other immediately, gravitating back together throughout the evening despite being part of larger groups. The connection was clearly immediate. A tabloid source later told a UK publication: “Maya and Ruben swapped details at the EMAs and have chatted since, but things went up a gear in early December.” The same source added that when Ruben picked up an injury around the congested Christmas fixture period and had unexpected free time, he flew to Spain to spend New Year’s Eve 2024-25 with Maya in Ibiza — a significant early step in any new relationship.
Early 2025: Rumours and Confirmation
Through January, February, and March 2025, speculation about the relationship was intense but the pair initially maintained careful public silence. Gary Lineker inadvertently confirmed the rumours by mentioning them as a couple in a TikTok video. Maya subtly acknowledged the relationship for the first time with a classy social media response to a troll who attempted to shame her for “jumping from relationship to relationship” — she neither confirmed the relationship explicitly nor denied it, but her response dismissed the criticism with poise and implicitly validated what everyone was speculating about. Eagle-eyed fans noticed that both Dias and Maya had begun wearing matching £5,000 Cartier LOVE bracelets — a detail that speaks more loudly than almost any verbal confirmation. Maya was spotted in the stands watching Portugal play Denmark in the UEFA Nations League quarter-final second leg in March 2025, and she was photographed partying with Dias past 3am after Portugal’s emphatic 5-2 victory.
April 2025: Going Public
The formal public hard-launch of their relationship arrived on 26 April 2025 at KSI’s Baller League event — a five-a-side football tournament with celebrity participants — held at the Copper Box Arena in Stratford, east London. The couple were photographed kissing in what became the defining image of their public debut, and from that moment their relationship was confirmed. The Baller League setting was fitting: Dias had been involved in the Baller League’s UK launch as part of a broader tie-up with Swiss international Alisha Lehmann, and Maya — who was present as both a supporter and a high-profile guest — was not shy about her affection. The photographs circulated immediately and extensively, and the reaction from both their fanbases and the broader British tabloid press was enthusiastic. They made a visually striking couple, and the combination of Premier League defender and Love Island host made them an irresistible celebrity pairing from a media perspective.
May–Summer 2025: Instagram Official and Holidays
In May 2025, Maya shared yacht photographs from a trip to Positano on the Amalfi Coast with Dias, making their relationship Instagram official in the most photogenic possible way. The images showed the couple in relaxed, happy holiday mode — clearly comfortable and affectionate — and generated enormous engagement across both their accounts. Dias posted a reply to Maya’s Nations League congratulations message — responding “love” followed by a red heart after Portugal beat Spain in the UEFA Nations League final on 9 June — which was interpreted by fans as the first time he had publicly expressed romantic sentiment toward her. Over the summer, the couple travelled extensively: they spent time in Florida and Ibiza. Maya also shared an image of their legs intertwined on what appeared to be a private plane, with the caption “Only been days but it feels like months” — a candid glimpse of the separation anxiety produced by their competing work schedules.
Halloween and Life in Alderley Edge
By October 2025, Ruben and Maya had been together for almost a year and were fully settled into life together in Manchester. They attended the Manchester City Halloween party together, dressed as Pirates of the Caribbean characters in a couples costume that Maya documented on Instagram with the caption “First Manchester Halloween.” The post was noted both for the costumes and for what it revealed about Maya’s growing integration into life in Manchester — a city she had previously described as “a celebrity hub” with appeal beyond simply football and the WAG social scene. Sources at the time confirmed that Maya had begun to split her time more formally between her London home and the £4 million Omaze prize-draw mansion in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, that she shares with Dias. Alderley Edge is the tree-lined, affluent village south of Manchester where Ruben Dias, and many current and former Manchester City players, have chosen to settle.
Meeting the Family and Learning Portuguese
Two details from this period of their relationship stand out as indicators of its seriousness. Ruben Dias introduced Maya to his mother, Bernadette, in what was described by sources as a significant and meaningful step — Dias having previously been notably reluctant to mix his personal and family life with his public profile. Reports also emerged that Maya had begun taking Portuguese lessons, an undertaking that speaks directly to her commitment to engaging with Dias’ culture and heritage rather than simply coexisting with it. Portugal remains central to Dias’ identity — he is one of the national team’s most important players and has been a key figure in their UEFA Nations League victories in both 2019 and 2025 — and Maya’s willingness to learn the language is the kind of gesture that resonates differently from a holiday abroad or a social media caption.
2026: BRIT Awards and Beyond
In 2026, the couple’s relationship has continued to develop publicly and privately. Maya attended the BRIT Awards 2026 at Co-op Live in Manchester, which took place in the city where she and Ruben live together. Her appearance was noted both for a spectacular outfit and for her relaxed public demeanour as one half of an established couple rather than a newly confirmed partnership. As of March 2026, both parties have described their relationship in consistently warm terms in their respective interviews. Dias, when asked about the attention their high-profile union attracts, told journalists: “I think that is the last thing you think about. Both of us are aware of it, and there is no way around it. But at the end of the day, you do not make it about it.”
Ruben Dias: The Footballer
Career and Achievements
Rúben dos Santos Gato Alves Dias, born on 14 May 1997 in Amadora, Portugal, is one of the finest centre-backs in the world and the cornerstone of Manchester City’s defensive structure under Pep Guardiola. He grew up in Amadora, a municipality in the Lisbon metropolitan area, and was developed through Benfica’s academy — one of Portugal’s most prestigious football development programmes. He made his senior debut for Benfica and established himself as one of the most promising young defenders in European football before Manchester City signed him in September 2020 for a fee of £62 million, making him City’s most expensive purchase at that time.
The 2020-21 season — his first in Manchester — was transformative for both player and club. Dias won the FWA Footballer of the Year, Manchester City Player of the Year, Premier League Player of the Season, and UEFA Champions League Defender of the Season. He became the first player since Thierry Henry in 2003-04 to win the FWA Footballer of the Year in their first season at a new club. In 2022-23 he was a central figure in City’s historic treble-winning season, in which they won the Premier League, the FA Cup, and the UEFA Champions League — the first English club to win the treble since Manchester United in 1999. He signed a contract extension with City until 2029, confirming his commitment to the club through the prime years of his career. In the 2025-26 season, Dias has been a steady and vital defensive presence despite City’s mixed Premier League campaign, making over 30 appearances across all competitions by March 2026.
International Career with Portugal
Ruben Dias made his senior international debut for Portugal in 2018 and has been a central figure in the national team’s defensive structure ever since. He was part of the Portugal squad that won the 2019 UEFA Nations League, defeating the Netherlands 1-0 in the final in Porto, and featured prominently in Portugal’s 2025 UEFA Nations League triumph as well — the victory celebrated by the couple partying together past 3am following the quarter-final win. His stature within the national team is significant: he has become a leader and organiser of Portugal’s defence alongside the goal-scoring brilliance of Cristiano Ronaldo — a connection that has amused British tabloids given Gemma Atkinson’s own brief relationship with Ronaldo in 2007, forming one of English football’s more unexpected six-degrees-of-separation stories.
At 28 years old, Dias is in the prime of his career and the combination of his technical quality, aerial dominance, composure in possession, and ability to organise a defensive unit from the back makes him one of the most complete centre-backs in world football. He has been largely free from the significant injury problems that disrupted his 2023-24 season and has benefited from Pep Guardiola’s trust and from the quality around him in City’s defensive unit.
Personal Values and Public Profile
Ruben Dias is widely described by teammates, coaches, and journalists as an unusually thoughtful and emotionally articulate footballer, whose mental approach to the game goes significantly beyond standard professional footballing attitudes. He has spoken publicly about the importance of vulnerability in professional athletes, about the value of psychological awareness, and about the challenge of maintaining personal identity and values within the pressures of elite professional football. This intellectual seriousness about his own psychology is consistent with the care he has shown in his personal life — most notably in his deliberate choice of privacy in his previous relationships and his evident intention to approach his relationship with Maya as something separate from the public spectacle it inevitably generates.
Ruben Dias’ Previous Relationships
April Ivy (2018–2021)
Before Maya Jama, Ruben Dias’ most significant and longest-lasting relationship was with Portuguese pop star April Ivy, whose real name is Mariana Gonçalves. The pair were together from approximately 2018 to 2021 — a three-year relationship that ended before Dias signed for Manchester City and began his Premier League career. The reason given for their split was lifestyle incompatibility: sources told Portuguese magazine Flash that Dias preferred a more private, discreet lifestyle while April Ivy’s career as a pop artist naturally involved a more public and extroverted existence. The split was apparently mutual and amicable.
April Ivy is a successful Portuguese singer-songwriter with a loyal following in Portugal and a growing international profile. The relationship with Dias during the years they dated was primarily covered in the Portuguese press and attracted limited attention in the UK, where Dias’ profile only became significant following his City move. The details of their split — specifically the “lifestyle differences” framing — are particularly interesting in retrospect given Dias’ subsequent relationship with one of the highest-profile British media personalities of her generation.
Arabella Chi (2023–2024)
Dias was linked to and briefly dated Arabella Chi — the model and Love Island star who appeared in Love Island series five in 2019 — from approximately September 2023 to January 2024. The relationship lasted around six months and ended following a New Year’s trip together, with reports citing personality differences. In an interview with The Sun on Sunday, Arabella spoke about her dating experiences during this period without specifically naming Dias, saying: “Last year was probably my unluckiest when it came to finding the one. I’ve been so unlucky in love. I’ve dated people I thought at the time were the one, which was a mistake I’ve since learnt from.” The Arabella Chi episode is notable partly because it connects Dias’ personal life — if indirectly — to the Love Island universe that his current girlfriend Maya Jama would subsequently come to epitomise as its host.
Maya Jama’s Previous Relationships
Stormzy: The Defining Romance
Maya Jama’s most publicly significant relationship before Ruben Dias was with rapper and musician Stormzy — real name Michael Omari — whose career arc from south London grime to global mainstream acceptance has been one of British music’s most remarkable stories of the past decade. Maya and Stormzy first began dating in 2015, when both were rising talents at the beginning of careers that would bring them to national fame. They were together for four years before splitting in August 2019 at a point when Stormzy’s career was at its zenith and both their profiles were rapidly rising. The first split was widely covered and clearly painful for both parties, though they maintained a mutual respect that would bring them back together years later.
After the first split, Maya moved on to other relationships, most notably a high-profile engagement with NBA star Ben Simmons that began in May 2021 and ended in September 2022 — a relationship that bridged the worlds of British entertainment and American professional basketball. At the end of 2023, Maya and Stormzy rekindled their romance for a second time, photographed together on holiday in Hydra, Greece, in what became one of the most discussed celebrity reconciliations of that period. They released a joint statement confirming the relationship, but in July 2024 — after approximately a year together the second time — they released a second joint statement announcing their final split, confirming they would remain friends. The end of the second Stormzy chapter left Maya single for approximately six months before the EMA meeting with Dias in November 2024 that changed everything.
Ben Simmons Engagement (2021–2022)
In between the two chapters of her relationship with Stormzy, Maya was engaged to Philadelphia 76ers and later Brooklyn Nets NBA player Ben Simmons. The pair were first linked in May 2021, became engaged around Christmas 2021, and broke off the engagement in September 2022. Simmons is an Australian-American professional basketball player, and the relationship attracted considerable attention in both the UK and the US given the celebrity profile of both parties. The split was attributed to difficulties managing the demands of long-distance travel and fundamentally different lifestyles — “they truly gave it their all and realise that they just come from two different worlds,” a source told a tabloid. Her engagement ring was sufficiently striking to become a talking point at the BRIT Awards 2022, where she wore it publicly. She was also briefly and incorrectly linked to Leonardo DiCaprio in early 2023, rumours she firmly denied.
Where Do Ruben Dias and Maya Jama Live?
Alderley Edge, Cheshire
Ruben Dias and Maya Jama live together in Alderley Edge, Cheshire — the village approximately 15 miles south of Manchester city centre that has been the preferred residential address for Manchester City and Manchester United footballers and their partners for decades. The village offers a combination of rural beauty, privacy, excellent transport links to central Manchester, and the kind of affluent, discreet atmosphere that professional footballers — many of whom place enormous value on being able to live quietly away from public scrutiny — tend to seek. The couple’s home is described as a £4 million property that was originally listed as an Omaze prize draw mansion — a format that has become popular in recent years as a way of marketing high-value property while raising money for charity.
The choice of Alderley Edge for a couple in their position is entirely logical. Ruben’s training commitments at Manchester City’s Etihad Campus training ground make proximity to the club important, and Alderley Edge sits on a direct rail line to Manchester Piccadilly and is well connected by road. Maya’s work, meanwhile, takes her primarily to London — for Love Island (shot in Mallorca but with base operations in London), for brand meetings, for events and awards ceremonies — and a major northern rail hub makes the Euston or Manchester Airport connection straightforward. Sources reported in mid-2025 that Maya was “considering splitting her time between London and Manchester” rather than relocating entirely, an arrangement that preserves her London professional base while establishing a genuine shared domestic life with Ruben in Cheshire.
Practical Guide: Following Maya Jama and Ruben Dias
Social Media
Maya Jama is active on Instagram under the handle @mayajama, where she has a substantial following built over her decade-plus of media work. Her content spans fashion and style posts — including the Love Island villa outfits that generate enormous engagement — personal lifestyle content, brand partnerships, holiday photography with Ruben, and occasional candid reflections on her career and life. She is also active on X (formerly Twitter) where she has previously addressed fan questions and media speculation, including the incident in early 2025 in which she responded to a troll who criticised her relationship history. Ruben Dias operates an Instagram account at @rubendias, which since his relationship with Maya has evolved to include more personal content including couple photography — something notably absent from his previous social media output, which was largely football-focused. A fan comment noting “half of Ruben Dias’s photo dump being of Maya Jama. I love chalant men” went viral and accurately captured the shift in his social media tone.
Watching Maya Jama on TV
Maya Jama presents Love Island on ITV2 and ITVX during the summer series (typically June to late July) and Love Island All Stars in January. She is also a panelist on The Masked Singer UK, broadcast on ITV1, which airs in the autumn. Her acting debut in The Gentlemen season two on Netflix is expected to release in 2026 — date not yet confirmed. All ITV content is available live and on demand via ITVX, ITV’s streaming platform, accessible via web browser, app, and smart TV. Netflix is available via subscription on all major platforms.
Watching Ruben Dias Play
Ruben Dias plays centre-back for Manchester City, based at the Etihad Stadium, Etihad Campus, Manchester, M11 3FF. Home matches are ticketed via Manchester City’s official website. City’s home matches are broadcast on Sky Sports and TNT Sports in the UK, with selected matches on Amazon Prime Video. The 2026 Carabao Cup Final, in which City face Arsenal at Wembley on 22 March 2026, is broadcast free to air on ITV as well as on Sky Sports. International matches for Portugal are broadcast on various UK platforms depending on the competition — Champions League on TNT Sports, UEFA Nations League on Channel 4.
FAQs
Who is Ruben Dias’ girlfriend?
Ruben Dias’ girlfriend is Maya Jama — the Bristol-born television presenter, radio DJ, actress, and entrepreneur best known as the host of ITV2’s Love Island since 2023. The couple met at the MTV European Music Awards in Manchester in November 2024 and confirmed their relationship publicly in April 2025 when they were photographed kissing at KSI’s Baller League event at the Copper Box Arena in east London. As of March 2026 they share a home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire.
When did Ruben Dias and Maya Jama get together?
Ruben Dias and Maya Jama first met at the MTV EMAs in Manchester on 3 November 2024. They began dating privately in December 2024, with reports confirming they spent New Year’s Eve 2024-25 together in Ibiza. Their relationship went public in April 2025 at the Baller League event in east London, where they were photographed kissing for the first time. They became fully Instagram official in May 2025 when Maya shared holiday photographs from a trip to the Amalfi Coast.
How old is Maya Jama?
Maya Jama was born on 14 August 1994 in Bristol and is 31 years old as of 2026. Ruben Dias was born on 14 May 1997 in Amadora, Portugal, and is 28 years old, giving the couple a three-year age gap. Maya is a Leo — a detail she occasionally references on social media, and one her fanbase has enthusiastically embraced as fitting for someone with her level of charisma and magnetic public presence.
What is Maya Jama’s net worth?
Maya Jama’s net worth is estimated at between £2 million and £3 million as of 2026, accumulated through a combination of her television presenting work, radio career, brand partnerships, and business ventures. Her Love Island hosting salary alone is reported to be approximately £800,000 per summer series and £800,000 for All Stars, bringing her ITV earnings to close to £2 million annually. Additional income comes from her Rimmel London ambassadorship, her Beauty Works partnership (a six-figure deal), her MIJ Masks skincare brand (valued at over £300,000), her co-ownership of plant-based milk brand Sproud, and her production company MIJ Productions.
Where do Ruben Dias and Maya Jama live?
Ruben Dias and Maya Jama live together in a £4 million mansion in Alderley Edge, Cheshire — the affluent village south of Manchester that has long been the favoured residential area for Manchester City and Manchester United footballers. Maya also maintains a base in London, splitting her time between the two cities to accommodate her television and presenting work, which is primarily based in London and Mallorca. The Alderley Edge home is their primary shared residence as of early 2026.
Is Maya Jama in The Gentlemen on Netflix?
Yes, Maya Jama appears in two episodes of season two of The Gentlemen on Netflix, directed by Guy Ritchie. She was officially announced as part of the second season’s new cast alongside Hugh Bonneville, Benjamin Clementine, Benedetta Porcaroli, and Michele Morrone. She filmed her scenes at Badminton House in Gloucestershire in May 2025 and described it as a dream role in Instagram posts. Season two of The Gentlemen is expected to release on Netflix in 2026, and Maya has expressed an ambition to play a villain in future acting projects.
Who did Maya Jama date before Ruben Dias?
Before Ruben Dias, Maya Jama’s most significant relationships were with rapper Stormzy (2015–2019 and briefly again 2023–2024), NBA player Ben Simmons (engagement 2021–2022), and a number of other individuals she has generally kept private. Ruben Dias himself previously dated Portuguese pop star April Ivy (2018–2021) and was briefly linked to model and Love Island star Arabella Chi (September 2023–January 2024).
Does Maya Jama support Manchester City?
No — despite dating Ruben Dias and sharing a home in Cheshire, Maya Jama’s football loyalties are not with Manchester City. She supports Bristol Rovers, her hometown club, and also has a fondness for West Ham United. She has been spotted watching Manchester City matches to support Ruben, but has made clear in interviews and on social media that her personal football allegiances remain with Bristol Rovers and West Ham. Dias has reportedly taken this fact in good-natured humour.
Are Ruben Dias and Maya Jama engaged or married?
No — as of March 2026, Ruben Dias and Maya Jama are dating but are not engaged or married. They have been together since late 2024 and confirmed their relationship publicly in April 2025. While they share a home and are clearly a committed couple, there has been no announcement of engagement as of early 2026. Both have been characteristically private about the future direction of the relationship.
What does Ruben Dias think about being a celebrity couple?
Ruben Dias has addressed the celebrity status of his relationship with Maya Jama in several interviews, consistently describing it as something he is aware of but actively chooses not to centre. In one interview he said: “I think that is the last thing you think about. Both of us are aware of it, and there is no way around it. But at the end of the day, you do not make it about it. You make it about everything else, and then it is an extra you have to deal with and, obviously, be smart with it.” This pragmatic, grounded attitude to public attention is consistent with the character that his teammates, coaches, and interviewers have consistently described over his career.
What is the Baller League event where they went public?
The Baller League is a five-a-side football tournament format created by YouTube personality and professional boxer KSI, involving celebrity participants and designed to bring together the worlds of football, entertainment, and social media. The UK edition launched in 2025 with a partnership involving Swiss international Alisha Lehmann and was held at the Copper Box Arena in Stratford, east London. Ruben Dias and Maya Jama attended together and were photographed kissing at the event in April 2025, marking their first public appearance as a confirmed couple and setting off widespread media coverage of their relationship.
What happened between Maya Jama and the WAG scene in Manchester?
Maya Jama has been candid about her positive experience integrating into Manchester life through her relationship with Ruben Dias. A source quoted in The Sun described her as loving “the down-to-earth nature of Manchester, as well as the glamour of the football and WAG scene,” adding that while Bristol and London remain important to her, she is enjoying spending more time in Manchester. Maya attended her first Manchester City Halloween party in October 2025, which she documented on Instagram as “First Manchester Halloween” — an acknowledgment that Manchester is now genuinely part of her life rather than simply her boyfriend’s city.
Maya Jama’s Impact on Love Island
Transforming a Cultural Institution
When Maya Jama was announced as the new host of Love Island in 2022 — beginning her presenting duties with the January 2023 winter series — the appointment was greeted with near-universal approval from the show’s fanbase and from the broader British media establishment. Her predecessor Laura Whitmore had struggled to fully inherit the warmth and ease that the show’s original host Caroline Flack had brought to the role, and there was genuine uncertainty about whether Love Island could sustain its position as the defining British reality television event of the summer without the right presenter at its helm. Maya answered that question unequivocally from her very first episode.
What Maya brought to Love Island that immediately distinguished her presenting style was a combination of glamour and accessibility that felt entirely genuine. She walked into the villa with the ease of someone who had grown up watching the show — which she had — rather than someone who had been briefed on its cultural significance. Her famous no-cue-cards policy, which she has made a public point of pride, means that every piece of presenting she does on the show is unscripted and spontaneous. In a medium where most hosts rely heavily on autocue, this commitment to live authenticity generates precisely the kind of unscripted moments — like calling out a contestant’s eye-roll live in the final — that become the social media clips that drive the show’s cultural conversation. By the 2025 season, Love Island under Maya was attracting 2.5 million viewers and had restored the show’s ratings to levels not seen since its peak years in the late 2010s.
Her approach to the Islanders in the villa — sitting with them at the fire pit in candid conversation rather than conducting formal interviews — reflects the same quality that has made her successful throughout her career: she is genuinely interested in the people she works with, and it shows. Former Islanders have consistently praised her for this, calling her “perfect” for the role in post-show interviews. The show’s global expansion — with versions in Australia, the US, and across Europe — has been partly enabled by the credibility of the UK flagship under Maya’s stewardship. ITV’s reported willingness to pay her close to £2 million for the 2026 season reflects a clear-eyed commercial assessment that she is irreplaceable in the role, and that their investment in keeping her is justified by the ratings performance and cultural visibility she delivers.
Fashion and Cultural Influence
One dimension of Maya Jama’s Love Island presenting that extends well beyond the television format itself is the fashion conversation her outfits generate with every episode. In a show built on the visual grammar of young, attractive people in swimwear in a Mediterranean villa, Maya’s role requires her to be both glamorous enough to stand apart and grounded enough to connect — and she achieves this balance through a wardrobe strategy that has become a cultural event in its own right. Her outfits are typically discussed extensively on social media within hours of each episode airing, with fans identifying brands, retailers, and designers and driving significant commercial traffic to the pieces she wears.
This fashion influence extends beyond Love Island. Maya has been on the cover of Vogue twice — a benchmark of fashion credibility in British media — and her status as Rimmel London’s brand ambassador since taking over from Kate Moss places her squarely in the first tier of British beauty endorsement. She has described her personal style as “glamorous yet relatable” — an apt summary of an aesthetic that draws on high fashion without ever feeling inaccessible or deliberately exclusive. The combination of her Caribbean-African-Scandinavian heritage and her British working-class upbringing gives her style a distinctive authenticity that expensive styling alone cannot manufacture.
Ruben Dias: Elite Defender and Team Leader
Defensive Excellence at Manchester City
Ruben Dias’ arrival at Manchester City in September 2020 for £62 million coincided with one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the club’s recent defensive history. Before Dias, City’s defending had been a persistent weakness — not in terms of personnel but in terms of organisation and leadership. From his very first weeks in the Premier League, Dias provided both. His reading of the game, ability to organise those around him, composure under pressure, and technical quality in possession make him the ideal centre-back for a Guardiola system that demands defenders be comfortable on the ball and capable of initiating attacking moves from deep. The 2020-21 season in which he won every individual award available to him was not a statistical anomaly — it was the most articulate possible expression of what City had been missing.
The 2022-23 treble season saw Dias operating at the heart of the best defensive structure in English football, contributing to a league campaign in which City were virtually impenetrable. His Champions League appearances that season — including the final itself, won against Inter Milan in Istanbul — demonstrated that his quality translated to the highest level of European club competition as well as the domestic league. He has occasionally been hampered by injury, including a hamstring issue in 2022 that cost him a significant number of appearances, but his recovery from each physical setback and his consistent return to top-level performance reinforces the impression of an athlete with unusual resilience and dedication to his craft.
In the 2025-26 season, Dias has continued to be one of City’s most consistent performers despite the club’s mixed Premier League campaign. His contract extension until 2029, signed in 2024-25, represents Guardiola and City’s clear intention to build the next phase of the club’s development around him as one of the defensive constants. At 28, he is now entering the peak years of a centre-back’s career — the period of maximum effectiveness in terms of the balance between physical capability and tactical intelligence — and the expectation is that the finest years of his career are ahead of him rather than behind.
Leadership and Mental Fortitude
One of the most frequently discussed aspects of Ruben Dias as a public figure — beyond his technical attributes — is the thoughtfulness he brings to questions about psychology, wellbeing, and the mental dimension of elite sport. In interviews, Dias has spoken with uncommon frankness about the vulnerability required to be a good teammate, the importance of self-awareness in managing the pressures of professional football, and the challenge of maintaining personal values and identity in the goldfish-bowl environment of Premier League celebrity. These are not the standard talking points of a professionally media-trained footballer. They reflect a genuine intellectual engagement with his own experience and with questions about the human cost of peak performance.
This psychological articulateness is visible in his relationship with Maya Jama as well. When asked about the celebrity scrutiny their relationship attracts, his response — making it about the relationship itself rather than the attention — reflects the same priority-ordering that characterises his football career. He is not unaware of the attention; he is simply more interested in the substance than the spectacle. For fans who appreciate athletes with genuine depth of character alongside technical excellence, Dias is one of the more compelling personalities in the modern Premier League.
The Couple’s Social Media Presence
Combined Audience and Influence
The combination of Maya Jama’s and Ruben Dias’ social media followings creates one of the most powerful celebrity couple platforms in British entertainment. Maya’s Instagram is followed by millions of people who track her fashion, her Love Island work, her business ventures, and her personal life. Dias’ account, while historically more football-focused, has evolved since their relationship became public — his posts now regularly feature Maya, holiday content, and glimpses of their shared domestic life that were entirely absent from his social media output before 2025. The fan comment that went viral — “half of ruben dias’s photo dump being of Maya Jama. I love chalant men” — captured the shift in his digital persona precisely: a previously guarded footballer who has become, in the context of this relationship, someone willing and apparently eager to share his affection publicly.
The commercial implications of their combined social media presence are significant. Brand partnerships that access both their audiences simultaneously can reach a cross-demographic audience spanning football fans, Love Island viewers, fashion-conscious consumers, and the broader British celebrity following that tracks both of them through media coverage. Maya’s existing commercial infrastructure — MIJ Productions, her brand deals, her skincare company — positions her well to develop content and commercial partnerships that reference the relationship without making it the primary commodity, while Dias’ relative commercial inexperience in this area means the couple’s combined potential has not yet been fully realised.
Public Reaction and Cultural Status
The British public’s response to Ruben Dias and Maya Jama as a couple has been notably warm and enthusiastic in a celebrity landscape that can be quick to cynicism. The reaction appears to reflect genuine affection for both individuals separately, and a sense that their pairing is credible and based on mutual attraction rather than PR calculation. Maya’s existing fanbase — built over a decade of authentic, funny, and warm media presence — tends to give its approval to her relationships based on whether they seem to make her happy and whether the partner treats her with the evident care and respect she deserves. From everything visible in the public record of their relationship — the Instagram captions, the Cartier bracelets, the Portuguese lessons, the Manchester City Halloween party — the consensus among her audience appears to be clear approval.
Has Ruben Dias won the Champions League? Yes — Ruben Dias was part of the Manchester City squad that won the UEFA Champions League in June 2023, defeating Inter Milan 1-0 in the final in Istanbul. That triumph was part of City’s historic treble-winning season in which they also won the Premier League and the FA Cup — the first English club to achieve the treble since Manchester United in 1999. Dias played a central role throughout the Champions League campaign that season, forming one of the most reliable defensive units in European competition with Kyle Walker, John Stones, and Manuel Akanji. He has also won multiple Premier League titles, FA Cups, and EFL League Cups with City since joining from Benfica in September 2020.
Did Maya Jama go to the Brit Awards 2026 with Ruben Dias? Maya Jama attended the BRIT Awards 2026, which took place at Co-op Live in Manchester — an unusual but symbolically fitting choice of venue given Maya’s growing connection to the city. The event brought together the British music industry’s biggest names for the annual awards ceremony. Maya’s attendance in Manchester, where she and Ruben share their Alderley Edge home, was noted as another public marker of how fully she has integrated into life in the city. Ruben Dias was not reported to have attended the BRIT Awards ceremony itself, though both were present in Manchester at the time of the event.
Ruben Dias and Maya Jama are individually two of the most fascinating public figures in British popular culture today — a world-class footballer operating at the highest levels of the Premier League and European competition, and a media entrepreneur who has made herself indispensable to British television through sheer force of talent, warmth, and commercial intelligence. Together, they represent one of those rare celebrity pairings that feels genuinely interesting rather than manufactured, built on a real connection that developed over months of private correspondence before being exposed to public scrutiny.
Maya Jama’s career trajectory in 2025-26 — Love Island All Stars, The Masked Singer as a judge, The Gentlemen as an actress, MIJ Productions as an independent producer — places her among the most versatile and commercially active presenters in British entertainment. Her willingness to pivot from presenting to acting, to build businesses alongside her television work, and to engage honestly with her own life’s complexities gives her a depth of public interest that outlasts the latest relationship news. Ruben Dias, meanwhile, is a defender whose combination of physical excellence and intellectual articulateness makes him one of football’s most compelling characters as well as one of its finest practitioners.
Their relationship is, by any reasonable assessment, one of the most high-profile and publicly followed in British celebrity culture in 2026. And the evidence — from the matching Cartier bracelets of early 2025 to the shared home in Alderley Edge, the first Manchester Halloween, the meeting with his mother, Maya learning Portuguese — suggests it is built on rather firmer foundations than most celebrity pairings that attract comparable levels of public interest.
Read More on Manchesterindependent