Molly-Mae Hague has issued her own statement on the controversy surrounding her recent comments on success and privilege, in which she apologised to the people who have been “affected negatively or misunderstood the meaning” of her remarks.
The former Love Island star made headlines last week when a clip of her appearance on Steven Barlett’s Diary of a CEO series went viral, in which she claimed “we all have the same 24 hours in the day” to achieve success.
“I understand that obviously we all have different backgrounds, and we’re all raised in different ways, and we do have different financial situations, but I think if you want something enough you can achieve it and it just depends to what lengths you want to go to get where you wanna be in the future,” the social media influencer said.
Following accusations that her views were “tone deaf” and “Thatcherite”, Molly-Mae’s representative issued a lengthy statement insisting she was “discussing her own experience and how she can resonate with this specific quote”.
However, the influencer has now gone further in a post on her Instagram Stories, where she has 6.3 million followers.
She wrote on Monday: “I wanted to come back online today as normal but I feel like before I do I just wanted to say this…
“When I say or post anything online, it is never with malice or ill intent.
“I completely appreciate that things can affect different people in different ways however I just want to stress that I would never intend to hurt or upset anyone by anything that I say or do.”
“I apologise to the people that have been affected negatively or misunderstood the meaning of what I said in the podcast, the intentions of the podcast were only ever to tell my story and inspire from my own experience.”
She added: “Love to you all, always x.”
A rep for Molly-Mae previously tried to clarify her comments after much social media commentary.
They said: “Social media users have shared a short snippet from this interview with words such as ‘if you are homeless buy a house’ and ‘if you are poor be poor’.
“These are absolutely not Molly’s words, these are not Molly’s thoughts and this isn’t at all the meaning or thought behind that conversation.”
Molly Mae found fame on the 2019 series of Love Island, where she coupled up with boxer Tommy Fury.
The pair finished in second place on the ITV2 reality show, and have gone on to forge a lasting relationship, as well as becoming one of the show’s biggest success stories.
Molly Mae, who was an influencer prior to appearing on Love Island, was named creative director of fast fashion brand PrettyLittleThing in August last year, with her salary reported to stand at seven figures.
Steven Bartlett, whose podcast Molly-Mae made the comments on, also defended the star and said she faced a “double standard” as a young and successful woman, noting that his male guests did not have to “tip toe” around their successes.
“If I interview a man, he can brag about money, take full credit for his success and talk about his cars?” he asked on Twitter.
“Gender issues aside, the standard we hold Molly Mae to as a 22 year-old that’s figuring out the world is absolutely outrageous.”