Reality TV star Sophie’s death still hurts a year on – Malin
LOVE ISLAND PAIR BONDED BEFORE DEATH
Sophie Gradon REALITY TV star Malin Andersson has told of her grief over the death of fellow Love Island contestant Sophie Gradon.
It has been almost a year since the former Miss Newcastle died at the age of just 32.
Now Malin, who also appeared on the reality dating show, has opened up about her friend and the loss of her own baby daughter Consy, who died last month at just four weeks old.
Speaking to OK! Magazine Malin, who lost her mum to cancer in 2017, said she hoped all three were in heaven together.
The 26-year-old said: “It is a massive comfort to think of my mum, Sophie and Consy, up there having a blast.”
Consy was born seven weeks early on December 23and taken to the intensive care unit at London’s Great Ormond Street hospital – but the baby died four weeks later.
Malin has also spoken of the short precious time she spent with her daughter, and her feelings after her death.
She added: “I played with her hands and feet while she was in the incubator but I could not hold her.
“I also became involved in nappy changes and was expressing so she could have my milk.
“She was 4lb 8oz, so too small for surgery. All I could do was hope for a miracle.
“We went to see her body in the morgue and she looked so peaceful but I still could not hold her. I had carried a baby for seven months and then nothing. “I felt empty, I have a scar where my baby has been taken out of me but there is no baby.
“I am a mum without a baby. I could not stop thinking, why me?” Sophie was found dead at her parents’ house near Ponteland in Northumberland last June.
Her new boyfriend Aaron Armstrong, 25, from Blyth, was also found dead just days after her funeral, on July 10.
Ex-Miss Great Britain Sophie starred in the 2016 series of the ITV2 show and coupled up with Thomas Powell before forming the show’s first same-sex pairing with Katie Salmon.
Malin, who was also on the programme in 2016, became friends with Sophie - bonding even after the show’s conclusion. Malin Andersson Malin Andersson
She said: “Sophie and I both suffered from the same situation after Love Island.
“Initially everybody loves you but soon you are cast aside and Sophie was not able to take the rejection.
“She was the closest person to me on the show and I felt the loss of her more after Consy’s death.”
Malin, who lost both her parents to skin cancer, has also had to cope with splitting from Consy’s father Tom Kemp.
She explained: “Things have been strained between us since Consy was born.
“A situation like that will either make you or break you and we have been at each other’s throats.
“He deals with things completely differently to me - he bottles everything up and then eventually explodes, whereas I think it is better to talk about everything.
“Our relationship was not healthy so I am taking myself out of it.”
It is a massive comfort to think of my mum, Sophie and (her baby) Consy, up there having a blast