Following much anticipation, I Kissed a Girl returned to screens at the end of Pride Month, with Irish bombshell Blessing Kingsley making an instant impact. Viewers are already hooked on the show’s second and final season, as messy mascs, dom femmes, Ibiza final bosses and bog standard U-haulers deliver drama aplenty.

Set in a beautiful Italian Masseria, the series begins with 10 sapphic singles looking for love. In the first episode, they are paired up for a kiss, before even having the chance to say hello.

From there, the girls get to know each other better, testing chemistry and connections all under the watchful eye of host and resident cupid Dannii Minogue. However, a range of challenges ensue, including the arrival of bombshells looking to blow up established relationships in pursuit of a love story of their own.

One of Season 2’s later entrants is Ireland’s own Blessing Kingsley. Without spoiling too much, she swaggers into the Masseria and shows no hesitation in going after what she wants.

With episodes releasing by the week, GCN spoke to Blessing about her time on I Kissed a Girl, as well as her journey with identity and dating.

Born and raised in Carlow, she was always with the boys in the early years of her life. “I was an athlete, a tomboy, I was always playing sports,” she said.

Although surrounded by them, she quickly realised there was no attraction there.

“I think I kissed one boy and that was the only boy I ever kissed in my life,” she remembered. “I said, ‘It’s not for me’. I kissed him just to see if I was straight or not. But I said, ‘No, definitely not’. Confirmed it.”

Despite knowing from a young age that she liked girls, it wasn’t until she was a little bit older that she found the confidence to come out.

“From 12 to 18, pretty much all through secondary school, I pretty much kept it quiet,” she said. “I just wasn’t ready to accept that part of myself and make my teenage years even more complicated.

“I came out to my mam when I was 18. I come from a very traditional Nigerian household, but my mam is one of the most forward-thinking and understanding people.”

Blessing continued, “Her reaction really surprised me. She probably thought I was trying to confess I did something terrible, but I just told her, ‘I have a girl that I really like and I wanna see her. What do you think?’ And she said, ‘Is that all?’”

Since then, Blessing has been on a journey to discover her true self, a big part of which happened when she moved to the US for college.

“It was my first time really seeing studs just embody themselves and be unapologetically themselves, and that was really important for me to see at that time. I had never felt more comfortable expressing myself that way until I was there, and I was like, ‘You know what? This is who I am’. And I just embraced it from then on.”

Part of embracing her true self involved diving into the dating scene. “I’ve seen a lot!” she joked, also explaining that as a stud, “people are quite enamoured by how we represent both masculinity and femininity,” meaning she gets a lot of attention.

With an already “eventful” dating history, why not add a reality TV show into the mix? Blessing had seen the application form for I Kissed a Girl floating around, but didn’t think there was any point in applying.

“You don’t think it’s gonna be you,” she said. It wasn’t until one of her friends from America pushed her to sign up that she said “F*ck it” and put herself forward.

“A couple of weeks later, I was taking a nap, and I got a call from one of the casting directors. They were like, ‘It’s the BBC’, and I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ It was a very surreal moment, because applying I was just not really thinking that I would be considered.

“I remember doing the application video, and I was in my bonnet and my sports bra, and I was just like, ‘This is me, take it or leave it’. And yeah, they clearly loved it, so it was good.”

Heading into the process, Blessing was looking for someone witty, funny and confident with good fashion sense. “That was who I was really hoping to see in there, and definitely found that, which was great,” she teased.

 

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Blessing entered the show as a bombshell, and while that might be an intimidating task for some, she was up for the challenge.

“I loved it,” she admitted, adding that she thought she was confident enough “to go in and be able to make an impact”.

“As an athlete, I’m very competitive too, so I know that my mindset going in was just go in there and go after what you want… It was a lot of pressure, of course, but it was something I was just really ready to embrace and take on the shoulders,” she shared.

As the only contestant from Ireland, Blessing also described being “really excited” to represent the Irish queer community.

“Specifically Black Irish queer people, because we have an amazing Black Irish community that are queer,” she added. “Everyone that’s a part of that community is so excited for me as well. I was just really excited to be myself fully and for people to see what Irish queers are all about.”

Alongside the quest for love, there was also room in Blessing’s heart for friendship. With a cast of sapphic singles sauntering around the Masseria, an array of connections blossomed alongside those that were romantic.

“The whole time I was there, I was just really grateful to be around people who aren’t afraid to express themselves freely. All of us really bonded over that because everyone is so distinctly themselves. We have similarities, but no one is a carbon copy of each other, everyone is themselves.”

Blessing described the bonds she made as “super special”, adding that her time on I Kissed a Girl overall was “life-changing”.

“I made so many amazing friends and my confidence as well has been sky high afterwards. So it was just an amazing experience.”

While I Kissed a Girl and its companion show I Kissed a Boy have been very well received, the BBC announced their cancellation earlier this year, citing “funding challenges”. Viewers and previous cast members alike were extremely disappointed by the news, highlighting the importance of LGBTQ+ representation in media.

Blessing echoed this sentiment, saying, “We need to see people that look like us on TV screens. I never had really anyone who looked like me or acted like me on TV growing up. I’ve even got DMs already saying that how I carry myself and how I represent is really, really inspiring for them. So that’s huge.

“If you can’t see it, you can’t be it,” she concluded, adding that she hopes the series will find a way to continue.

The first four episodes of I Kissed a Girl Season 2 premiered on BBC iPlayer on June 23, followed by episodes five and six on June 30, and seven and eight on July 7. The final two episodes will be released on July 14. 

 

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