“You are in the spotlight, no matter what you do.”
Love Island‘s Marcel Somerville has said that the “worst period” of his life came after the show ended.
The former contestant said that he “jumped at” the chance to enter the villa in 2017, but that dealing with life afterwards was a lot more difficult than filming.
This comes as Somerville, along with fellow contestants Yewande Biala and Chris Williamson, were giving evidence at a reality TV committee today.
MPs are investigating the television format following the deaths of Love Island‘s Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis, as well as The Jeremy Kyle Show‘s Steven Dymond.
They each took their own lives following the time on their respective show.
Sky News reports that Somerville said he had little contact with producers after the show ended. He added however, that he knows the level of aftercare has since changed.
“You are in the spotlight,” he said.”No matter what you do, anything that happens there is going to be a story about it.”
“Public break-ups, everything that happens. You are like, ‘this is the worst period of my life’. That was the worst period of doing Love Island.”
Somerville and Biala have also been discussing the show’s racial diversity.
Somerville said that he recognises Love Island has made a “conscious effort” to cast more non-white people since his time on the series.
He added that he was given no social media training when he left the villa and that he was subjected to racial abuse.
“There are a lot of trolls,” he said. “I didn’t get told how to tweet. There were people with no followers sending racist stuff.”
“I eventually worked out how to block certain words but I did that off my own back.”
Biala said that she was taught how to block certain words and accounts. She was also given training on how to run her own social media account.
The committee is ongoing.
