Is the party over for Love Island?
As ITV announces that it will continue with the summer series of Love Island, Harriet Kean asks both psychologists and former contestants whether the programme needs a rethink…
WHEN IT WAS announced last week that Love Island will return for another series, Twitter users were quick to criticise the ‘disrespectful’ decision. Following the death of the show’s former host Caroline Flack, some felt it was only natural for the series to end, arguing that the programme could not go on without its vivacious and beguiling presenter.
Caroline’s death is the third suicide in connection with the series (former contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis both took their own lives after appearing on the reality TV show), prompting questions about how the programme takes care of its talent. Last week, Montana Brown, who appeared in the same series as Mike, revealed that ‘every single person that I’m friends with from Love Island suffers from anxiety or depression – it’s actually terrifying’.
Malin Andersson, a former contestant who was in Sophie’s intake in 2016, tells Grazia that the show’s support is simply not good enough. ‘Every time someone passes, I get an email saying, “How are you?”, and I think that’s just shocking,’ she says of the production company’s response to the recent deaths.
Honey Langcaster-james, a psychologist who has worked on Love Island, believes there is a gap in knowledge with regards to mental health. ‘A lot of production companies try really hard to put in place good services, but because they’re not trained professionals themselves, they don’t know who to turn to for the best support.’
Linda Papadopoulos, a TV psychologist who worked on Big Brother when it launched in 2000, agrees, arguing that reality TV has drastically altered since its inception. When Big Brother started, it was seen as ‘a social experiment’. Reality TV these days, she says, is ‘much less real… and the game playing element has to be more creative’.
Dr Papadopoulos believes that certain aspects of Love Island, such as Casa Amor or the headline game (where contestants are exposed to vitriolic tabloid headlines concerning them) ‘raises anxiety… It is about manipulating the situation to create drama and that, in essence, is what reality TV has become.’
So what should Love Island do differently this time? Dr Papadopoulos says that the screening process and aftercare needs to be ‘much more complex’. ‘There needs to be a strategy, so therapy, but also advice around managing money, business and the next steps. These are people’s lives, they are real people. We consume them and then, when we have had our fill, we spit them out. This has the potential, as we’ve seen, to do serious damage.’
Yet not all former contestants feel the same way. Shaughna Phillips, a contestant from this year’s intake, found the experience wholly positive. ‘I couldn’t fault the welfare,’ she tells Grazia, adding that there were therapy sessions called Welfare Wednesdays, and that she has a long-term plan with a therapist. ‘I’d call it a Full English of experiences. I had a little bit of everything, but I’m glad for the experiences. It’s made me stronger. I’ll be tuning in this summer, that’s for sure.’