Laura Whitmore on Love Island, lockdown and Giving Up Clothes for Good
HOW MUCH, ON a scale of one to 10, did you miss Love Island this summer? If you’re host Laura Whitmore, the answer is so much that she had to scratch her itch by revisiting vintage seasons. ‘I started watching series one – oh my God! – I forgot how naughty they used to be before it became a commercial success,’ the host tells Grazia over the phone.
Skipping the summer series was the right thing to do, even if the lifting of certain restrictions would have made it possible. ‘A few hundred people work on that show – it’s a big production, so they can’t do it half-arsed,’ she says. And there were other things to consider. Laura, whose partner is the show’s narrator Iain Stirling, was only meant to present the inaugural series of winter Love Island, but the tragic death of Caroline Flack means she will continue in the role next year. ‘Everyone working on that show lost someone very close to us,’ she explains. ‘We all needed time to think. So I think the best thing for it is to have time and then come back as the show that we know and love.’
During lockdown, Laura has been busier than most. The Irish star, who originally trained as a journalist, has been writing a book, No One Can Change Your Life Except For You, out in March, and her short film, Sadhbh – which she wrote and stars in – premiered virtually to film festivals. And she still found the time to clear out her wardrobe. Laura has partnered once again with TK Maxx as part of their Give Up Clothes for Good campaign, which urges us to clear out our closets and drop off our clothes, earning a donation of up to £25 for Cancer Research UK.
Fashion, then, can undoubtedly do good but, Laura points out, it is still a feminist issue, and she begrudges being sexualised more than men who do the same job as her. She recalls a male journalist who used his first question to tell Laura that her dress was showing ‘a bit of side boob’. ‘First of all, it wasn’t,’ she says. ‘I was like, “Is that really the first question that you have to ask?”’
Thankfully, progress has been made since Laura first started out in the industry 10 years ago. ‘I used to be afraid to speak up about things that didn’t feel right,’ she says. ‘I feel a bit more confident now. I don’t know if that’s an age or an experience thing.’ Laura supports TK Maxx’s Give Up Clothes for Good in support of Cancer Research UK for Children & Young People; Tkmaxx.com