Sex scene? No, my nana’s watching
Dublin beauty’s Love Island fun... and lockdown ordeal
TV SHOW Love Island is all about sex… but it seems sex was strictly out of bounds for one Irish contestant. Dubliner Shannen Reilly McGrath was parachuted onto the set to ratchet up the sexual tension. But the blonde has told the Irish Mail on Sunday that sleeping around was never on the cards – because her nana was watching.
The show that sends a host of singletons to a luxurious villa for a summer of passion has proved a surprise hit.
It is known for nudity and sex scenes and the contestants are encouraged to pair up and convince the public they have found love. However, Shannen, a 23-year-old dental nurse and model, insisted from the very start that she would not be bed-hopping.
Producers spotted her profile on Instagram and added her and four other temptresses to the line-up last week to stir things up.
They moved into a villa along with all the male contestants, in a bid to split up the established couples.
But Shannen said: ‘They never asked me if I would have sex with someone but I always said I wouldn’t do that. Because my mam and nana and everyone would be watching.
‘My dad would bloody kill me. And I wouldn’t do it anyway. But I’d understand how it happens with the couples because you are in there so long you actually forget that the cameras are still there.’
Shannen says that putting her in the villa along with four other girls diminished any chance of her finding romance.
‘I was a bit disappointed because I would rather have gone in with maybe one other girl or a boy instead of five people. Because there were so many of us, I didn’t get my airtime and I didn’t get enough attention or anywhere near what I would have wanted.’
She joined the show along with another Irish contestant, Rob Lipsett.
But it turns out that smoking rather than sex has angered viewers. ITV has been criticised by the public for encouraging contestants to smoke.
In almost every episode, the contestants can be seen regularly lighting up in the villa.
But Shannen insists that the production team did not promote smoking and the contestants were smoking out of boredom.
‘You can’t put cigarettes out on the ground or anything like that. If you do throw them on the ground, a voice comes out from the sky, we call it God, and
They were locked away when voted off
tells the housemates to clean up, or not flick ash on the ground. I think it is just out of boredom that people smoke.
‘We just sit there doing nothing and it is easy. Johnny literally just sits there smoking and it is ridiculous and even he laughs about it.
‘Before he went onto the show he didn’t even smoke.’
Shannen said the worst part of the show was the three days the producers locked them away from the public after they had been voted off the show.
She said: ‘That was tough because you are just sitting around and you have no phone and you just want to speak to your family and get home. But they can’t let you out because the programme hadn’t been aired and they didn’t want to risk any spoilers. That was a lot of waiting around and hiding and walking down the road hoping people don’t notice you. It is a bit mentally draining.’