He was the breakout star of this summer’s series – an ally of women, with refreshingly goofy charm. But that doesn’t mean the 28-year-old’s mum has stopped checking up on him

In a corner office in ITV’s headquarters in central London, the former Love Island contestant Ovie Soko is about to be embarrassed by his mum, Foluso. The pair have recently been on This Morning, cooking Eamonn Holmes’s breakfast live on air, completing the promotional duties of any successful reality TV star. But now, as his dad, Ray, quietly eats a supermarket sandwich, the dirt is about to be dished.

“He talks about himself in the third person,” says Foluso.

“I’ve never done that,” counters Soko, quickly regressing from 6ft 7in (2-metre) professional basketball player and composed TV personality to annoyed teenager.

“You’d come in and say: ‘What will Ovie have for lunch today?’ Is that not the third person?” adds Foluso, doubling down.

“I’ve never done that!” says Soko. “I’ve said: ‘What’s cooking?’ But that’s different.”

Ray joins in. “He’d come back from training and say: ‘What is Ovie having for lunch?’”

The son remains silent, beaten by a parental tag team in perfect harmony. “I’ll record you and put it on Instagram next time,” adds his mum, for good measure.

It is rare to see Soko flustered. After all, he made a name for himself on a show where “flustered” has probably been used only as a wry sexual euphemism: Soko is the standout star from this year’s Love Island, the Marmite reality TV show in which young people with no tops on try ostensibly to “find love” and, more accurately, “build a brand” from which to launch lucrative deals after filming ends. Soko, a late entry to the competition (he entered the villa in the fourth week), arguably did both: romantic love, possibly, with his fellow contestant India Reynolds (who he is still in a relationship with); platonic love, definitely, with Amber Gill, who eventually won the show with her rugby player partner Greg O’Shea. The Ovie brand, meanwhile, is a work in progress as he considers a move from basketball into TV or fashion.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Soko and Amber Gill take part in a challenge on Love Island; the pair became close friends on the show. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

So, what has surprised him the most since he left the Mallorcan hideaway at the end of July? “The love, man,” he says. “It’s overwhelming. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

His newfound popularity will not be a surprise to anyone who watched the show. People like Soko are rarely seen on reality TV; he doesn’t make sense in that context. In fact, they are rarely seen on TV at all. Self-assured without being cocky, entertaining without being overbearing, paternal without being condescending – there was a laconic and disarming ease to everything he did while in the villa.

And what he did was ... surprisingly little. The other residents marvelled at the fact that a 28-year-old man could make himself breakfast. His catchphrase (“Message!”), which he shouted after anyone got a text, became a highlight of every episode. The public swooned over his goofy personality and incredible array of headgear, from a do-rag to a purple number that looked like Gene Hackman’s porkpie hat in The French Connection.

The attention he has received since leaving the villa is “great”, he says. “It makes you feel good, but at the same time it was just me being myself day to day. It’s wild that that can reach so many people.”

Part of the reason people fell in love with him was his protective nature. First of Gill – a loud, funny, fiercely loyal Geordie who went through a crushingly harsh breakup with this year’s pantomime villain, Michael Griffiths – and then of Reynolds, whom he extricated from an explosive argument between fracturing couple Anna Vakili and Jordan Hames, extending his hand to her and leading her calmly from the fray.

“[Soko] is the James Bond of the villa, if James Bond was in touch with his emotions and didn’t kill people for a living,” said one Vice article about him. Indeed, it was his interpretation of masculinity as something powerful and attractive but at the same time reasonable and unflappable that made him a fan favourite.

Being original and being yourself is cool Ovie Soko

Another thing that doesn’t make sense in the context of reality TV is why Soko entered the villa in the first place. He was a successful professional basketball player, signed by CB Murcia in Spain’s top division, the most respected league outside the NBA. He had worked towards a professional career from the age of 13, leaving home in north London at 16 to attend a private school in Virginia, to which he had won a scholarship. After three years of university – first in Alabama, then Pennsylvania – he missed out in the 2014 NBA draft, although Golden State Warriors were initially interested in him. So why did he put himself through a notoriously brutal British reality show?

“On a basic level, it was my brother,” says Soko. “It was a passing comment. He said: ‘Ovie, you’d be sick on this show,’ when we were watching it last summer.” But there was also a need to distance himself from the sporting world. “This was an opportunity to be known outside of basketball and to say I’m more than just my sport.” He had also been seriously injured twice, which had got him thinking about his career prospects, while the death of a friend had made him think more existentially. “A close friend of mine passed away playing basketball. He had a heart attack in practice in Macedonia; he was so far from home. That year, I did a lot of thinking; there was a long time to collect my thoughts and reassess everything.” Knowing this, his zen-like appearance on Love Island makes much more sense.

Some observers have claimed that Soko’s success is intertwined with his race (he is British-Nigerian). “It’s simple, really,” wrote Tobi Rachel Akingbade in Grazia. “It starts with the fact that we only get one Ovie per generation … black men are rarely presented without a tinge of negativity or damaging hypermasculinity.” Soko is careful and considered when discussing the subject of reality TV and race, and how black people are rarely successful on shows on which the public can vote – take Alexandra Burke on Strictly. “Being a young black man is something in life that’s on your mind,” he says, before pausing for a few seconds. “It’s a weird one. It’s important for young black people to know that they can be themselves and you don’t have to fit into a specific mould to be one on TV.

“If there’s one thing I hope it did show, it’s that being you is dope. Being original and being yourself is cool. If you’re one of one, think about how valuable that is. Every single person – regardless of race, colour, gender – is one of one. Now that is some valuable shit. Excuse me.”

Growing up in Tottenham in a tight family unit of mum, dad and older brother Raymond, Soko believes his worldview was shaped by being exposed to art via his father, who made large-scale mixed-media work in his home studio. “Even from that early age, I saw things differently,” he says. He didn’t do well at school, where he struggled to adapt to rigid ideas around learning. “I was mischievous,” he says. His mum says she gave him the nickname Motorola because he used to talk so much as a child.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Man of many hats ... Soko in the villa. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

“I would question everything, and I feel like they teach you not to question stuff. It’s backwards to me. Since nursery, you’re taught to do things a certain way and not think for yourself,” he says, before launching into a metaphor about colouring that I get lost in. “Think about kids who use colouring books,” he begins. “They’re told to colour and ‘stay inside of the lines’, but what is that really saying to you? What lines are you talking about? Because the border of the pages could be seen as the lines, but they’d say you were wrong if you did that.”

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There is definitely a motivational speaker, a Sesame Street presenter or a YouTube philosopher in Soko, waiting to get out. The conversation we have is littered with nuggets of life advice and aphorisms. On manners: “Being polite to people shows you think [the other person] has worth, and not being polite, it’s like saying: ‘You’re beneath me.’” On giving advice: “I don’t give the best advice, but when I’m talking to anyone I’ll give you advice exactly how I see it.” On why reality TV relationships can be sustainable: “If you want to go over the long run, the news and that aren’t going to be interested when you’re 65 or 70.”

Soko’s outlook on life is influenced by a heady mix of seemingly incompatible things. There are his parents and big brother, whom he clearly reveres. The church (“Sunday was church day; there was no Sunday football for me”). “Do you know ET, Eric Thomas?” he asks. “The motivational speaker? He’s huge. I listen to a lot of investors’ podcasts. I listen to a lot of people.” He has also spent hours watching documentaries about people including Conor McGregor, Denzel Washington and Idris Elba. It combines to create a worldview rooted in live and let live, minding your own business and believing in yourself.

Soko’s parents have been sitting respectfully in near-total silence throughout the interview, while making their way through a bag of snacks. But now their son wants to settle the score. “My mum creeps on my Instagram and checks on all my stories,” Soko says, bowed but not broken after the earlier dusting down from his parents. “When I got back from dinner with India, Amber and Greg, my mum was like: ‘I know where you went.’”

“I had to check on you,” she says.

“Just allow it. If you know, I don’t need to know that you know. I’m 28! My dad lets me do my thing, but my mum …”

No motivational speaker in the world is going to be able to help Soko get out of that one.