Why did Love Island USA's Josh Goldstein and Shannon St. Clair split?

17 September 2025, 15:18

Here's what happened with Love Island's Josh Goldstein and Shannon St. Clair. Picture: Instagram / Peacock

By Abbie Reynolds

Here's what happened between Love Island's Josh and Shannon and why they broke up explained.

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Josh Goldstein is back on our screens alongside the likes of Kendall Washington, Tyrique Hyde and Lucinda Stafford, for Love Island Games.

His first stint on Love Island was back in 2021 when he was on the USA's third season. During the show, he met Shannon St. Clair and they quickly became fan favourites. While they were faves to win, they had to leave the show abruptly during week four when Josh found out his sister, Lindsey Goldstein, had tragically died.

Leaving the villa, Josh told his cast: "She was an unbelievable person. She was the reason I’m here, the reason I found Shannon and met all you guys. It’s unexpected, but she lived an unbelievable life. I just need to be home with my family right now to support them."

Shannon left the villa alongside Josh but now that the fitness trainer has returned to a Love Island villa, it's clear things didn't work out. But what happened? Here's what we know about Josh and Shannon's breakup.

Read more: How to watch Love Island Games in the UK

Josh and Shannon met on Love Island USA in 2021. Picture: Instagram

What happened between Love Island's Josh and Shannon?

After leaving the villa under unprecedented circumstances, the pair seemed to go from strength-to-strength with Shannon by Josh's side through the grieving process.

They went on to celebrate Christmas together in 2021 and, in early 2022, the pair moved to Florida together. Sadly, by the summer the announced their split in a joint statement.

The statement read: "We love this life we’ve built together, but sometimes timing is everything. We will always love and care for one another and remain friends, but unfortunately at this time we’ve made the decision to go our separate ways.

"There is no bad blood between us, the people closest to us know we rarely had arguments. We are literally best friends, so we both want to see each other succeed and be happy, always."

Love Island's Shannon and Josh after leaving the villa. Picture: Instagram

Despite this, just four months later Josh and Shannon revealed that they were giving things another go.

Shannon soft launched their reunion in a TikTok with Josh captioned, "When you tryna keep your relationship private but can’t keep hiding each other forever,” posted in October 2022.

Sadly, the following year things came to an end again, with Josh confirming the news via an Instagram Q&A in December 2023. "Gonna get this one out the way," Josh wrote alongside a question asking him if he and Shannon were still together.

"The mili $ question. I’ll let y’all use common sense on this one. NO. All love tho, we still friends."

They never addressed the reason for their second split.