Maura Higgins kickstarts her Dancing With The Stars adventure as she flies to LA with 10 bags of luggage before heading straight to a photo shoot

Maura Higgins has kickstarted her journey to win the Dancing With The Stars glitterball, as she made the big move to Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The former Love Island star, 35, has relocated to the US to appear on the ABC show, after bidding farewell to her pals over the weekend.

Maura revealed she'd headed to the airport with 10 bags of luggage in tow as she boarded her flight for California.

But it wasn't wholly smooth sailing ahead of the move, as Maura revealed she'd broken one of her mirrors while packing. 

And there was little time for the star to rest once she touched down in LA, as Maura shared on Instagram Stories she'd headed straight into a fashion shoot.

On Sunday, Maura revealed she'd said farewell to her close pals with an afternoon of drinking and karaoke.

She also shared a snap of the American-themed gifts she'd been given by her pals, including an AI-generated image of herself holding the Dancing With The Stars trophy.

While Maura has previously shared her excitement at getting to appear on the hit US show, she sparked controversy by sharing one professional dancer she didn't want to be paired with. 

Maura shared her hopes that she won't have to face the Russian professional dancer Gleb Savchenko because she doesn't agree with the 'way he talks about women'.

She said she will be remaining fiercely 'loyal' to her best pal and former DWTS contestant Brooks Nader, 29, who dated Gleb.

Gleb has since responded to Maura, as he explained he has 'never heard' of the star and insisted he will not 'lose any sleep over the opinion of someone I've never met'.

In a statement to the Daily Mail he said: 'Until I was asked to comment on this story, I'd genuinely never heard of this girl, Maura, so I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over the opinions of someone I've never met.

'It's odd to publicly attack someone you've never even met, but if that's how she wants to make headlines before the show starts, that's her choice. 

'I'll stay focused and leave the unnecessary drama to everyone else.'  

Gleb and Brooks endured a 'messy' split after they sparked a romance during their time partnered on the show in 2024. 

Maura told E! News: 'I'd be happy with anyone but Gleb. That's only because I'm loyal and I'm friends with Brooks [Nader].'

She added: 'I don't really like the way he speaks about women. I don't really want to spend all my time with someone like that. I'm like, no thank you.'

Maura is hoping she will instead be paired with Valentin Chmerkovskiy as she teased about them dancing together in a video. 

Maura's comments about Gleb come after he branded his ex-girlfriend Brooks 'the worst sex' he has ever had. 

'When I dated her, it was pretty bad. Probably the worst sex of my life' the ballroom dancer claimed to Dakota Mortensen, ex of reality TV star Taylor Frankie Paul. 

Gleb also claimed the Louisiana-born beauty often took things to a rough level that he was not comfortable with.

They began seeing one another in the fall of 2024 when they were partners on Dancing With the Stars, with it quickly becoming apparent that a romance was forming.

But Brooks intimated in an October 2024 TikTok clip that they had parted ways.  

'Gleb got way too comfortable, especially in the amount of time he was spending at Brooks’ home, to a point it had begun to concern Brooks’ people and family close to her,' an insider told US Weekly of the couple's split in the fall of 2024.

Things appeared on track again the next month, when Brooks welcomed Gleb to her family's Thanksgiving dinner. 

The duo parted ways again in April last year, with Gleb telling Page Six he was caught off-guard by their split.