‘I don’t know what the future will bring – but everyone loves Shaughna’
WITH THE WORDS ‘congrats, hun’, Shaughna Phillips won series six of Love Island three weeks before it even finished – if not officially, then certainly in the eyes of its millions of viewers. She may have been dumped from the villa in an emotional episode at the end of last week, but Shaughna’s one-liners, excellent game face and moments of vulnerability captured our hearts (notably when she sobbed to Paige Turley, ‘Why can I never be the girl that they can just do it for? I’m always that other girl.’). Then there’s her relatability – what other Love Islander carries chocolate bars in their bikini top?
Shaughna’s Love Island journey was certainly an emotional roller coaster from start to finish, whether it was being confronted with her former other half Callum Jones – the emotionally unavailable scaffolder from Manchester – returning from Casa Amor hand-in-hand with his new love interest Molly Smith, or her – in retrospect, perhaps ill-advised – interest in Justin Bieber lookalike Luke Mabbott.
Watching at home, the 25-year-old democratic service officer’s friends and family tell Grazia that they saw Shaughna’s inner strength growing by the day. Her mum, Tracy Phillips, says, ‘Unfortunately, her life experiences have taught her that she’s going to get hurt and knocked down, but these have attached to her armour. She’s had her heart broken badly. When you have been hurt, it knocks your confidence and she has been down on herself and does have insecurities and vulnerabilities, though I saw her confidence growing in the villa.’
While viewers may have been holding out hope that Shaughna could ‘pull an Amber’ and win the series with a new man, last week that hope was shattered, when she was dumped during a dramatic recoupling.
Shaughna’s friend Tara Siddiqui, with whom she studied journalism at London South Bank University in 2012, tells Grazia she wasn’t surprised that Shaughna was so honest about her insecurities during her time in the villa – it was like history repeating itself. ‘She’s been unlucky in love,’ says Tara. ‘There have definitely been relationships that have gone well, like her first one, but her last two didn’t work out.’ Tara adds that Shaughna’s genuineness is one of the reasons she became so popular with viewers. ‘She’s honest, but she lets people see that vulnerable side. Being the girl that the boy doesn’t want: we’ve all been there. When she pulls out chocolate bars from her top and wears spot cream, she’s just being herself. She’s confident in who she is and that’s refreshing.’
Dark times engulfed Shaughna in June 2015, when her friend Tommy Blackmore died from a punch after being wrongly accused of stealing a phone. Meanwhile, she lost her beloved father Eddie to cancer the following year, in December 2016. ‘She’s been through a lot,’ says Tara, who adds that finding a man would have been nice, but it wasn’t an essential outcome of Love Island for Shaughna. ‘She deserves to know that she’s loved for being who she is. She’ll find out how much everyone who’s been watching loves her.’
Tracy explains that her daughter went into the villa looking for love, ‘but as an intelligent person, she knows it will bring a whole load of other opportunities’. Her best friend from school, Meg Curran, agrees that life’s going to look very different for Shaughna now. ‘It’s a whirlwind. I don’t know what life is going to bring, but I hope she’s going to get everything she wants,’ she says. ‘I think she’ll have a breakdown when she realises how much everyone loves her – and that people are buying “Congrats, hun” T-shirts. I’m so proud of her.’