Ariana Madix Teases Love Island: Beyond the Villa Spinoff Has ‘a Lot of Similarities’ with Vanderpump Rules

When JaNa Craig and Serena Page came to Fiji for ‘Aftersun,’ Madix gave them some advice on filming for the spinoff, she tells PEOPLE

The upcoming Love Island spinoff series, Beyond the Villa, is going to be reminiscent of another fan-favorite reality show.

The spinoff brings season 6 stars Leah Kateb, Serena Page, JaNa Craig, Kaylor Martin, Liv Walker, Kenny Rodriguez, Miguel Harichi, Kendall Washington, Connor Newsum and Aaron Evans back together again as they navigate a new chapter of their lives, one year after taking the world by storm in the villa.

Ariana Madix, who hosted season 6 of Love Island USA and is currently in Fiji hosting season 7, got the inside scoop on the spinoff, which premieres July 13 on Peacock, when Serena and JaNa came to Fiji last month.

JaNa and Serena broke down the latest news amongst the former Islanders for Madix.

There’s been “so much” going on in JaNa and Serena’s lives since they left the villa last July, and Madix tells PEOPLE it was so nice to properly catch up with them in Fiji.

“When JaNa and Serena came out to do Aftersun, we were able to go out and get dinner the night before,” she says. “And that was really fun.”

She had seen them, along with Leah, aka PPG, recently, though, because they visited her and Katie Maloney’s restaurant.

“They came to the sandwich shop, Something About Her, to shoot their spinoff show,” she reveals. “So I got to chat with them a little bit there, because a lot of times we interact online.”

Having time in Fiji, though, “to sit down and talk about everything that’s happened,” was especially nice. “There’s just so much.”

Madix was able to give the ladies advice as they filmed the spinoff series, based on her own experiences on Bravo.

At their dinner, she says they were able to “talk a lot more in-depth about what it was like filming the spinoff,” considering Serena, 25, and JaNa, 28, didn’t have any on-camera experience aside from Love Island.

It helped, too, that Madix could pull from her own experiences on Vanderpump Rules, which is where she got her start in 2013.

“There’s a lot of similarities to filming [the spinoff] as, I feel like, there was to filming Vanderpump Rules, for example. So we were able to talk a lot about that.”

She continues of JaNa and Serena, “It was just so good to see them, and they’re so much fun, and I’m so glad they came out and got to experience a little bit of [Love Island] on this side of filming.”

Beyond the Villa will bring fans inside the lives of their favorite season 6 Islanders as they spend a summer in L.A., one year after entering the villa.

Per the official logline, the spinoff “follows everyone’s favorite Season 6 Islanders around Los Angeles as they navigate new careers, evolving friendships, newfound fame and complex relationships outside of the Love Island villa.”

The islanders’ relationships are at the core of the series, and in the trailer, there are plenty of dramatic moments of reckoning, including between exes Kaylor and Aaron and when Nicole Jacky makes an appearance and meets her ex, Kendall, for the first time since last year’s reunion and their breakup.

Love Island: Beyond the Villa premieres on Sunday, July 13 at 9 p.m. ET on Peacock. New episodes will then drop every Thursday.