What it’s REALLY like when your daughter goes on Love Island
Unspeakable trolling. Binge-eating from the stress. And, far from enhancing their career, it can damage it. As the infamous show returns, two mothers reveal...
There is no such thing as the definitive modern parenting manual, but if there were, it would have to come with a chapter entitled: What to do when your daughter tells you she wants to go on Love Island. Former contestant Savanna Darnell’s mum Karen Smallwood, who lives near Sheffield, could write it.
It would be too late for the current crop of Love Island parents — which includes footballer Michael Owen. his daughter Gemma is part of the 2022 line-up on the cult ITV dating show, which kicked off this week. Michael has reportedly left the country, quipping that he is living ‘every father’s nightmare’.
Karen’s number one piece of advice: don’t be in a hurry to be supportive.
‘I took Savanna shopping for bikinis!’ she says. ‘But I was so naive; I didn’t know what could go wrong. We were swept along. If I knew then what I
know now, we’d have had a very different conversation.’
Karen, 56, had to pick up the pieces when her eldest child’s Love Island dream turned nightmarish.
‘I wouldn’t wish that on any parent,’ she says. ‘She went from being this fun, bubbly girl to someone who didn’t want to get out of bed . . . From this confident, independent girl to one who had to move back in with her mum.’
Savanna appeared on the show in 2018. She went in with high hopes; but soon learned for every influencer seemingly on track to make millions, there are an awful lot of young people for whom the dream never materialises, leaving them feeling like failures — very public failures at that.
Savanna’s story is even darker. Although she has rebuilt her life now, she admits that being on the show left her spiralling into depression, facing death threats from online ‘haters’.
Love Island has been accused in the past of playing hard and fast with contestants’ mental well-being.
After the shocking suicides of former contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis, ITV published its Duty of Care charter in June 2019 which laid out its commitment to mental health. Then, following the suicide of troubled former presenter Caroline Flack in February 2020, the show introduced further measures to ensure contestants — and their families — feel psychologically supported.
Karen’s experience illustrates exactly why this is needed, but does make you wonder how any support system can help when the show thrives on manufacturing conflict and controversy.
Karen has been following the new series and fans’ comments with mounting alarm: ‘It’s horrific what people are saying about them. When they get out, they will read it all. Maybe they will be able to brush it all off, but how do you know?
‘I thought my daughter would be strong enough, but she wasn’t. I can’t tell you how horrible it is to walk into your child’s bedroom and discover they have been up all night crying because a stranger has said they are the ugliest ever contestant.’
She says Savanna thought her career had died before it had begun. ‘I felt helpless.’
The show’s application process is cloaked in mystery, but insiders say every year around 100,000 hopefuls apply. Recruiters are very active in approaching potential contestants themselves on social media.
This year, it has been reported that only three candidates came from the thousands who put themselves forward; the rest were wooed by the show’s recruitment team. This is what happened to Savanna, who was 22 when she appeared in 2018 — the series which catapulted Dr Alex George to fame, and gave a platform to Dani Dyer, daughter of actor Danny Dyer.
Until the show’s producers got in touch with her, Savanna had never considered applying; her mother had never even watched Love Island.
Maybe what piqued programme makers’ interest was her famous dad — U.S. singer August Darnell (better known as Kid Creole, from the Eighties band Kid Creole and the Coconuts). He and Karen met when she was a besotted fan in the audience at Sheffield’s Lyceum in 1982. They were married for four years.
He has remained in Savanna’s life and she grew up believing a career in entertainment was entirely achievable.
At 16, Savanna moved to Nottingham to attend performing arts college. By 2018, she had not only graduated (‘with distinction’, says her mum) but had landed professional parts.
‘She’d been signed by a great agent, got a role in the Thriller tour, and been in Aladdin with Will Smith,’ says Karen. ‘It was all coming together. In February that year she could finally afford to rent a flat in London.’
Enter Love Island. In March 2018, Savanna called Karen, fizzing with excitement. She had been approached to ‘try out’ for the show. ‘They told her she was going to be one of the originals — or at least the first bombshell. I had no idea what it meant.’
The ‘originals’, or the first crop of contestants, go into the villa with an advantage because viewers get to know them best, and they have more time to form a successful couple. The addition of ‘bombshells’ shakes up the line-up and the action as things progress and is a vital quirk of the programme.
Savanna was asked to get ready to fly out to Mallorca. Karen took her shopping. ‘I bought her new trainers, bikinis, all the things she needed.’
But there had been a complication. Savanna had been approached by a ‘big celebrity talent agency’ who wanted to sign her ‘to look after her when she got out of Love Island’. She felt pressure to ditch the agent she’d had from college: ‘She went to see him and was in tears, but he was lovely about it.’
A few weeks later, Karen took her to the airport. ‘I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak to her because they take their phones off them. I was in tears but I was still excited for her.’
It would be two weeks until filming started, but ten days in, Savanna returned to her mum’s: they didn’t need her yet. For the next two weeks she watched Love Island, with her mum and sister, from the sofa.
‘The programme people kept phoning asking, “What do you think of him? Who do you fancy?” — trying to assess where she would fit in the show.’
It was a fraught time and
‘She went from a fun girl to not wanting to get out of bed’