Ariana Madix Manifested All Of This

Ariana Madix and I are eavesdropping on the table next to us. We’re seated in the MO Lounge at the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan, waiting for our coffees to arrive, and I’m telling her about an argument I just overheard at this apparent business meeting — something to do with a hotel stay gone wrong. “What’s the tea?” she wants to know, and we giggle over how much we love trying to guess. The vibes may be off at those strangers’ breakfast table, but over here, they couldn’t be more fun.

Madix is in New York for a series of back-to-back events, parties, and media appearances, including Watch What Happens Live and the NBC Emmys Luncheon. It’s 10 a.m. on a Wednesday, and though she says she’s tired, you wouldn’t know it — the 40-year-old reality star is fresh-faced and glowy, with her newly brunette hair loosely pulled back in a clip. She looks cozy in a black Adidas tracksuit and white sneakers, paired with a Min & Mon bag embroidered with googly eyes and florals and a fluffy turquoise bag chain. “I checked last night and realized I’ve been doing all this in my luteal phase,” she says. The subtext: She can officially do anything.

In a few hours, Madix has to hop on a plane home to LA, but she won’t be there for long. A week after our interview, she’ll depart for Fiji to begin her hosting duties for Love Island USA Season 8, which premieres on June 2 and runs through the end of July. Right now, she’s in pre-trip mode, checking essential errands off the list: doctor’s and dentist appointments, getting a new asthma inhaler, and picking up press-on nails at the local mall kiosk to wear with her looks this summer.

Though she doesn’t know exactly what’s in store when she lands in Fiji (she likely won’t see the Season 8 cast list until the day of the premiere), she now knows the lay of the land as she enters her third season as host. Love Island USA has become a cultural phenomenon under Madix’s watch, breaking streaming records in both seasons she’s helmed so far. Popular cast members like Leah Kateb and Olandria Carthen have become celebrities in their own right, and the series has added new phrases to the common lexicon (“My dream date. Cute” and “Mommy? Mamacita” still proliferate across comment sections on the internet).

Still, she demurs when I ask about the show’s secret sauce, attributing its success to excellent cast chemistry and creative twists that production comes up with. “It’s a show that I’ve really loved for a long time, and I’ve always thought that it should be really popular,” she says. “I take the role seriously, and I really try to give it my best.”

That approach has helped the Vanderpump Rules star captivate audiences for more than a decade. Madix has a career portfolio most could only dream of: 11 seasons as a main cast member on a hit Bravo series, a third-place finish on Dancing With the Stars, a sold-out Broadway run in Chicago, guest spots on shows like The Other Two and St. Denis Medical, a Nancy Meyers-inspired sandwich shop she opened with Katie Maloney, and a New York Times bestselling cocktail book (her second book on the topic, but don’t expect a third from the former bartender: “I’m tired of making drinks”).

My younger self would be very relieved and happy to know that it all was worth it.

She may be a household name now, but she’s hustled to get here. “People see what they think is an overnight success, but it’s really been 10-plus years of work that have just now come to a moment where people see it,” Madix says. After spending five years in NYC postcollege auditioning for theater roles, she moved to LA in her mid-20s, determined to make a name for herself so she could eventually end up on Broadway. When reality TV became an option because of her bartending job at SUR, the backdrop for Vanderpump Rules, she went for it. “I’m not very good at reality TV,” she says, looking back at her time on the show. “It taught me that my strengths as a person are not necessarily what is desired or required in that realm, and that’s OK because there are people out there who fulfill it when it comes to being a reality TV cast member ... I think I was trying to become one of those people who was so good at that for a long time.”

But she’s not dwelling on it. “I think my younger self would be very relieved and happy to know that it all was worth it,” she says.

She’s more focused on making her dreams come true. Madix is well-versed in speaking things into existence. “I’m a powerful manifester, to the point where I get a little nervous and have to be careful, because I think I’ve manifested my whole life,” she says. (As we’re chatting, a ladybug lands on the window, and she promptly exclaims, “Oh my God, we have good luck!”) After repeatedly professing her love for Love Island — most memorably during an argument with her ex on VPR Season 11 — she secured a guest spot on Season 5 of the dating series. Soon afterward, former host Sarah Hyland announced she was leaving, and with logistics “aligning perfectly,” Madix got the gig. “Of course, I think they also knew that I would work really hard,” she says.

It’s definitely like playing mermaid dress-up.

In June of 2024, Madix hit the ground running — quickly going viral for her entrance shots. She delivers yet another jaw-dropping look every time she saunters into the villa. “It’s definitely like playing mermaid dress-up,” she says. “I really want to be able to embody this character version of myself that is this sexy, confident, authoritative person coming in there and commanding the room.”

Now she has her walk-in routine down pat. “I play in my head this moment from the Renaissance Tour,” she tells me, pulling out her phone to show me a clip of Beyoncé strutting across the stage during the intro to “ENERGY.” “I’m like, ‘I have to be Beyoncé.’ I literally match that beat in my head, sometimes in Crocs if it’s a tight shot.” The heels don’t go on until they absolutely have to. “I’m like, ‘Do we have to do shoes yet?’”

Coming in as a fan made the experience even more exciting. Whether she’s sitting in the glam room or grabbing lunch on set, Madix has access to the live feeds in the villa. She tries to limit how often she watches them for fear of getting addicted, but sometimes she can’t resist. “I can change the channel, so I’ll be like, ‘Girls’ dressing room is boring. Let’s see what’s going on in the kitchen.’” When I gasp and tell her that is every Love Island fan’s dream, she nods and grins. “No, truly. It is also my dream.”

To further cement her fangirl dream life, she gets the episodes a few hours before they go live — but because the cast’s allegiances can shift so quickly, she sometimes walks into a reality that’s entirely different from what she just watched. “I might think, ‘Oh my God, that was a really cute recoupling.’ Then I go in the next day and they’ve broken up, and I’m like, ‘What happened? It’s been two seconds.’”

Madix has plenty of hot takes about the goings-on and sometimes has to hold back from telling contestants exactly what she thinks. “If I see a guy being a jerk to somebody, of course I want to go in there and tell him off,” she says, recalling the blindfolded kissing game during Casa Amor last year. “TJ [Palma] was rating all the kisses super low, and I was like, ‘Who the f*ck does this guy think he is?’ And you could tell. I was not hiding my poker face at all.” She’ll occasionally vent to production when she’s leaving the villa. “I still speak my mind. It’s just maybe not while I’m standing there in front of everyone. We go back to the dressing room and I’m like, ‘What the f*ck was that? What is his problem?’”

And yes, she’s chronically online and has seen your fan edits and TikTok deep dives. “It’s always fun for me to see that perspective of the viewer, especially knowing what’s all going on,” she says. “You get an hour-long episode, there’s 24 hours in a day. I’m a little bit more privy to the other 23 hours." Occasionally, she’ll weigh in on a viral conspiracy theory — like when she clarified that an unknown object on the ground was not, in fact, an IUD. “We were like, ‘What the hell is wrong with people?’” Madix says, laughing. “Guys, can we get a grip? I have to say, it gets to a point.”

It’s easy to dismiss it as a guilty pleasure or trashy TV, and it is so not that. I think it’s prestige.

Madix gets just as invested in the couples as the viewers do. “It’s hard not to when you see people really connecting and putting their hearts out there,” she says. She cites Serena Page and Kordell Beckham, Kateb and Miguel Harichi, and Carthen and Nic Vansteenberghe as some of her faves. In fact, Madix was Team Nicolandria from Night 1. “I was like, ‘Guys, get together, please.’ When they didn’t immediately couple up, I was shocked.”

She also loves keeping up with the contestants after the show, calling herself their “auntie” and naming Carthen as the cast member she’s proudest of. “She was destined for this life," she says of the former elevator sales specialist. “If she sold me an elevator, I’d be looking at her like, ‘Are you kidding me? The most beautiful woman in the entire world just sold me an elevator. What’s my life?’”

She’s excited to discuss her opinions this season with Ciara Miller and Tefi Pessoa, who will cohost the weekly Aftersun talk show. “I want to know their takes. I don’t even know what the takes are going to be on yet, but I already know I want to know,” she says. “And it’s going to be fun to spend days off with them. We can talk sh*t in private.” Madix has been excited to follow Miller’s professional arc as a fellow Bravo star branching out in the entertainment world. “Ciara is definitely somebody who I think has been planting those seeds and working her way towards an amazing career for a long time now. I feel like we’re seeing her really step into that.”

At the moment, Madix is eyeing a return to theater. “I would love to originate a role on Broadway,” she says. And naturally, she has some dream scenarios for Love Island USA Season 8. First, she wants to see some queer cast members in the villa. “I just feel like it’s representative of real life. Queer dating stories are just dating stories,” she says. She also wants the show to receive recognition at the Emmys. “We do something on Love Island that is not done on any other show in the category — we turn the show around in 24 hours. When you look at all the elements that go into that, it’s insane, and it’s incredible,” she says. “It’s easy to dismiss it as a guilty pleasure or trashy TV, and it is so not that. I think it’s prestige. I think it’s amazing. I think it’s a star-maker. I think it is compelling and beautiful.”

As she settles into her summer routine, Madix is calling in Zara Larsson’s single “Midnight Sun” as her current vibe. “I really love being alive, and I just want to keep doing that,” she says. “It’s like never-ending sunshine, I guess.”

She’s hoping to strut into the villa to that very song at some point. “I wanted it on the show last summer, so hopefully this time,” she says, then leans her face into the recorder: “Zara, clear the rights, please.” Now that she’s said it out loud, it’s only a matter of time.