Maura Higgins and Chris Taylor SPLIT

Maura Higgins and Chris Taylor SPLIT: Love Island couple announce they have parted ways but maintain they ‘still love, care and respect each other’:

Love Island stars Maura Higgins and Chris Taylor have split. 

The duo, who went public with their romance in November after months of secrecy, took to Instagram on Tuesday to reveal the news.  

The Irish beauty penned: ‘It breaks my heart to even type this but I wanted to let everyone know that myself and Chris have made the joint decision to end our relationship… 

Shock: Love Island stars Maura Higgins and Chris Taylor have split

‘There is no wrongdoing on either side… we still love, care and respect each other deeply. From the minute we met each other we’ve been very close friends and that will never change. There is no regret, life is about taking chances. 

‘We wanted to make this work but we have realised we work better being friends. Whilst I appreciate people may speculate or create false stories this is the truth. 

‘I wish Chris nothing but the best and I will always be one of his biggest supporters. Thank you for all the love and support’. 

Just two weeks before the announcement, Maura spoke to MailOnline about the prospect of marriage and how happy they were together. 

She said: ‘He lives two minutes away from me down the road but we may as well be living together because we stay with each other every single day. I feel like he practically is living with me – he has a very small drawer…

‘We definitely have spoken about it but there’s no rush, when it happens it’ll happen.We get on so well, we very rarely have arguments, and we just have a good laugh together…

‘Like every couple we have our bickers, he does silly things like leaving the fridge door open.We have spoken about getting married – we’ve often spoken about where would we like to get married and would I like Ireland or England, stuff like that…

‘I do feel like I’d probably want an Irish wedding, which is a crazy, big party. I’ve had an image in my head for years but everyone I know that’s got married always says ‘you’ll never wear what you thought.’ I’d like something very simple…

‘I don’t feel like I’m going to even cover up on my wedding day!’