LOST SOULS LOVE OF ISLAND
In the dog-eat-dog show, relationship rivals are goaded to betray each other to boost ratings – then abandoned by TV bosses when they leave. Now, after another fatal tragedy, former contestants angrily reveal the dreadful toll of being...
support or help.’ Kady McDermott, who appeared alongside Thalassitis in Celebs Go Dating, said: ‘Hopefully reality shows will help more with the aftermath of being on one, because I can say it definitely didn’t happen after my series when lots of us needed it.
‘Lives change overnight and no one can be mentally be prepared for it. The good and the bad.’
Sophie Gradon, who also appeared in the 2016 series, was found dead at her parents’ £900,000 home in Ponteland, Northumberland, in June last year.
An inquest into her death, which had been scheduled to start next Thursday, has been postponed after her parents asked for more time to consider a report they have recently received.
Gradon had been educated privately at Dame Allan’s School in Newcastle upon Tyne and had a university degree but began modelling at 16 and went on to become Miss Great Britain.
And yet despite these achievements, it was for her sexual antics on Love Island that she made her name. She had sex in a wardrobe with contestant Tom Powell before having the show’s first same-sex relationship with Katie Salmon.
After the series she spoke of how appearing on the show had left her ‘the most stressed and anxious’ she had ever felt.
She later wrote online that she had ‘ sold her soul’ and that her mental health had suffered.
In 2017, she tweeted that was ‘just battling a little bit of depression’ but with hindsight there were clear signs that it was much worse than that. ‘Feel so guilty when my anxiety takes over, for not wanting to see or speak to anyone,’ she wrote. ‘Some days I get so overwhelmed I just want to nap.’
In April 2017, she appeared to be improving: ‘Thinking back to when I became a total recluse, afraid to go out anywhere bc of crippling anxiety and how different my life is now!!! Facing up to your fears is sometimes the hardest but most rewarding thing!!!’
She suffered what she described as ‘horrific’ treatment at the hands of online trolls.
‘There would be so many negative comments,’ she said during a radio interview in March 2018.
‘They are commenting on the way you look, the way you talk. They would come up with an opinion of you on a TV show where they’ve watched you for 45 minutes. It was very hard to deal with because you take it like you’re being judged. The harsh reality is, it can end up with that person taking their own life.’
For Love Island’s fans, kept glued to their screens by the allure of sex, sunshine and romantic shenanigans, it must be hard to relate to the darker side of the show or the emptiness left behind when the veneer of fame rubs off.
But then perhaps the greatest irony of all is that a genre that was supposed to about ‘reality’ often pedals the biggest myth of all, that celebrity and happiness — even love — can be instantaneous.
A spokesman for ITV said: ‘Everyone at ITV2 and Love Island is shocked and saddened by this terrible news. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with Mike’s family and friends at this very sad time.’
For now it seems, the show will go on. Producers are advertising for ‘lively singles’ for the 2019 series and will no doubt be swamped by a new wave of hopefuls looking for a springboard to fame and fortune. Last year, the show received 150,000 applications, four times as many as Oxford and Cambridge universities combined.
‘How do you fancy enjoying your very own long hot summer of romance?’ says the blurb on the ITV website which promises: ‘If you’re over 18 you could be spending next summer in paradise.’
It’s certainly a world away from the cold and dreary North London park where Mike Thalassitis died alone this week.