It is shown that pristine fullerene C70 can be solubilised in imidazolium, ammonium and phosphonium based ionic liquids (ILs) bearing long alkyl chains (C8 or higher). The absorption and fluorescence properties are similar to those displayed in conventional polar solvents except in ILs containing chloride as the counter ion, which completely quench the fluorescence of C70. Fluorescence decay analysis using a sum of Becquerel functions to account for the complex decay of background emission allows the successful recovery of the solute’s lifetime.