Former Love Island star Lucie Donlan has admitted she almost quit the show after feeling “ganged up on” by the other girls in the villa.
During her time on the show, Lucie and several of her fellow female contestants fell out when they suggested to her then-partner Joe Garratt that she shouldn’t be spending so much time with Tommy Fury.
When Joe then urged her to spend more time with the girls, rather than Tommy, he was heavily criticised, but in an interview with The Sun, Lucie admitted it was the other women on the show that she was more upset with.
“I did think about quitting,” she said. “There was one night when I was really upset, because the girls had drilled it into Joe that I shouldn’t be spending all this time with Tommy.
“He came to talk to me about it but I was more upset by what they had done. After that, I didn’t really want to speak to them because I felt I couldn’t trust them enough. I thought if I did, they might bitch about me behind my back.”
Lucie recalled: “I can remember sitting there crying and thinking, ‘Will it be like this all the way through? Oh God, I won’t be able to cope with that. Love Island was meant to be fun’.”
“All I wanted was to have a laugh and try to find a boyfriend. But those girls are not like me. They like drama. It was like being in a school playground. I felt really alone and I didn’t know who I could talk to.”
After speaking to producers, Lucie ultimately decided to stay in the villa, a decision she’s now happy with, as she ended up growing close to bombshell contestants Maura Higgins and Arabella Chi.
She said: “Maura and I were inseparable in the villa. I don’t know how I’d have done it without her. We both had a hard time and supported each other.
“When she first came into the villa, she said to me, ‘I realise how [the other girls] have been treating you and I don’t like to see it, so I’m going to back you’.
“Then, when Arabella came in, she told the other girls immediately that she had seen what had been happening between them and me — that they had all ganged up on me.
“They denied it but they obviously realised bad things were being shown on TV. And they didn’t like it, so they backed off after that.”
Joe left the villa fairly early on in the series, after which Lucie recoupled with Anton Danyluk and later George Rains.
She and Joe left the villa last week, alongside Danny Williams and Jourdan Riane.
Despite being saved in the mass dumping, Amy Hart chose to walk away from the show the following day, later saying she quit to protect her mental health.